Episode Seven:  Earthfall: Synchronicity
by Errationatus2
Summary: Earth... and the best laid plans often go awry.  Forces are converging, and Crichton knows he must soon make sacrifices...    M for language and situations.
1. Prologue

**Note: **

_Yeah, it's been a while. Sorry. Writer's block and yada, yada.__ I think we're back on track. Thanks for waiting. Chapters will be about a week each, I think. We'll get there in the end.__  
><em>

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><p><strong>FARSCAPE<strong>

Previously, on _Farscape, the Freebooter Era_:

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><p>…<em>Arrival…<em>

_The crew of the _Vengeance_ and the Moyans have made their way to Earth, but little ever goes as planned. With John and Stark kidnapped, Serendipity destroyed, secrets exposed and Peacekeepers attacking, it would seem as everyone's worst fears have come true… unfortunately, things are only just getting started…_

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><p><strong>AND NOW, ON FARSCAPE:<strong>

**EARTHFALL, PART 2:**

**SYNCHRONICITY**

_This very remarkable man  
>Commends a most practical plan:<br>You can do what you want  
>If you don't think you can't<br>So don't think you can't if you can._

**Charles Inge, Cleric. **_**On Monsieur Coué**_

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><p><strong>PROLOGUE<strong>

**AT THE LAGRANGE POINT BETWEEN EARTH AND THE MOON,** it stopped. Nearly as dark as space itself, it had stopped, unseen, recalculated. Yes. It did not know enough. Too many variables, and the unique situation it had scanned – two with similar knowledge, one an open threat, the other closed, but no less dangerous – in some rather significant ways, even moreso. Its commandments were clear and could not be overridden. They had been set in place when the world below had been populated only by nascent plant life. It could make no determinations based on incomplete knowledge.

If necessary, it would exterminate all higher intelligences on the planet below to protect the Profundity, as its ancient masters called the knowledge. It had already waited out the evolution of the current occupants. It could certainly wait – if need be – for the next technical civilization to evolve to replace it.

But it could not wait forever.

It needed _answers._

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><p><strong>THE INITIAL VECTOR HAD FAILED.<strong>

Nerada Lamm was through with precision. She'd been reduced to a third of her force. She was no closer to her goal.

Very well. It was time she made it a little more …personal for Crichton. She called the remaining crew to general quarters, put the ship on war alert and began sequencing for the new Marauder's main batteries. This Marauder was twice the size, twice the speed and multiple times the firepower. There was nothing on Crichton's pathetic planet to challenge her ship. She did, however, hope they'd try.

"Scan and program in all main population centers of a million citizens or more." She told the ship's computer. It acknowledged, and figures began rolling up her screens. Crichton, she had been told, was a creature of reason. He would see that when given no choice, there was really only one to actually make.

"We will be merciful, for now." She told the ship. Lamm pointed to a stylized map of a continent below, a representation of a city. "We begin _there_."

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><p><strong>IT HAD BEEN EASY.<strong>

It took no effort for Aeryn to force the _Vengeance's _wing fighter down – fortunately to an aircraft carrier – the _Kennedy_ on patrol in the Pacific. The Captain of _Kennedy _had been easy to persuade when it came to disarming and housing the Peacekeepers. Also fortunately, the carrier had been on its way to Japan, and it would be a simple thing to transfer prisoners to an air transport for their journey back to the States.

They had only managed about a hundred kilometers when klaxons blared and the ship went on alert and a familiar black shape dropped from the sky. Aeryn explained it to the Captain, one Harris "Dutch" Dusky, as the Vigilante settled onto the deck. A quick call to the appropriate authorities and Captain Dusky played ball.

Crichton, Haxer and Shiv were the delegation this time, and in the CIC on the _Kennedy, _they met again.

Crichton introduced himself as "Captain E'van Ne'varre," to which Aeryn frowned. That meant 'Nothing and No One' in Sebacean.

"This is highly unusual," Dusky had said as an opener. Crichton simply nodded.

"It's that kind of world now, Captain."

"I've had enough of your games," John had come with an accusing finger. "What the hell are you playing at?"

Crichton looked at him coolly.

"What the hell are _you_ talking about?"

"What are you waiting for?"

"Did your IQ drop once you came back, John?" Crichton asked him. "I'm not a frelling mind reader."

"You have that ship – you could…"

Crichton cocked his head at him.

"What? Solve your problems? Make things easier for you?" He glanced at Aeryn, or she thought he did. He waved an arm to encompass the planet. "You got everything now – what more could you want?"

"There are Peacekeepers on Earth!" Crichton nodded at him. He saw Stark frowning mightily at him from behind Sun.

"More coming probably, too. So?" Crichton found a chair, sat, flanked by Haxer and Shiv.

"What do you mean, 'so'?" John was getting red in the face. "This is your planet, too!"

Crichton's grin at that was cold.

"Got a place at the kitchen table set, huh? Bunk-beds in our room?" His tone was scornful. "Can I use your stereo too, brah?" Crichton looked as if he'd spit. "Coming here wasn't _my_ goddamn idea."

"You mentioned the wormhole the last time you were down," Aeryn said, trying to deflect the tension she could feel between them. She could sense violence just beneath the surface, and knew that it wasn't the pirates before her that were in any danger – even on a massive ship full of soldiers.

"So I did. How about it, John, something you're interested in?"

John opened his mouth, closed it, thought. The guy was just trying to goad him.

"Where's Miriya?" Crichton asked out of the blue. Aeryn blinked.

"She's in the ship's brig, along with the other Peacekeepers."

"You can keep them," Crichton scratched his chin. "But Miriya's a member of my crew and I'd like her returned."

"She kidnapped me!" John told him.

"You've become a rather adept master of the obvious, John."

"She's a prisoner of the US government." He folded his arms. Crichton wondered how the hell he ever thought, even for a moment, he could be a duplicate of this petulant human before him.

"She's _my_ crew and I want her back." One ice-blue eye narrowed. "While I'm still _asking_."

It was Aeryn who became the voice of reason.

"I'll see to it." She turned to the Captain of the _Kennedy._ "I am authorized, Captain. Please fetch the red-headed woman up here." Dusky called over a yeoman, relayed that. He saluted and marched away. John pulled her aside and Crichton knew that he was arguing over why she would do that. She seemed to win the argument after a few moments. John huffed, came back.

"Is that all you want?"

"Nope. I need some information – energy valences, operational entry points, speed calcs, pressure formations and shockpoint intensities." John glared at him, thought hard, wondered why he'd need those. They would only be useful if he planned to…

"… no damn way."

"Somebody's gotta do it, John. You've been sitting on functional Hetch-drives for at least two years and you haven't done dick about it." An eyebrow went up. "Why?"

"Having a drive doesn't mean I have a ship."

"You could have sent an automated probe with a H-drive, and a modified nuke to close it, if you'd actually planned for it."

John's frown deepened.

"We don't have the technology to program wave variances into a nuclear blast!"

"Just trying to illustrate that you had _options_, John." A chin-scratch. "None of which you've taken. Again, I gotta ask: why? What the frell _are_ you waiting for?"

"Scorpius is coming." John said. It didn't sound like a question.

"Eventually. He was close. I don't know how close. Soon."

"I won't help you collapse the wormhole. Earth needs it. There are other ways." Like father, like son.

"Name three."

John racked his brain.

"Okay, we can… ah! Signature alteration. Resonance masking." He opened his mouth to explain what he meant, but Crichton was already shaking his head.

"Scorpius knows _where_ the wormhole is. He's only waiting until his Carrier is finished. Changing its signature won't make a bit of difference."

"Gravimetric doubling. I can make it temporarily unstable."

"With what? You don't have the power or the ship."

"But you do."

Crichton shook his head, his smile sardonic.

"I'm not giving you the _Vengeance_ to destroy. Because that's what it'd take. And _I_ have no desire to stay on this frelling rock."

"I can use that nuke you mentioned – you could take it…" Crichton was shaking his head again. He could see the desperation in John building.

"How many of your frell-ups do you expect me to fix, John?" He sighed. "Your government isn't going to give either one of us a nuke, especially if they think they can exploit the wormhole someday. You don't really wanna do it, either. A modulated nuke would close it for maybe, what – five years? – then back to where we started. Scorpius will be here a helluva lot sooner."

MP's marched in with Miriya just then, and her smirk vanished when she finally saw them.

"I suppose amnesty is out of the question, then?" She asked John, who had turned as she entered the room, and had, apparently, a hard time taking his eyes off her.

"Completely," Aeryn said, nudging John, who looked sheepish, and turned back to Crichton.

"Yeah, sorry." John told her, swallowing in a suddenly dry throat. _Damn! What was it about this woman?_

"Miriya," Crichton said, "Have you be naughty?"

"Of course I have." She told him, straightening, showing him her handcuffs. "See?"

"You can lose those," Crichton told an MP, who looked at his Captain, who looked at Aeryn, who nodded. In moments, Miriya was standing free. She took two steps to John, wrapped herself around his arm.

"Look – I used to be the best tech in the Influence and am the best tech in the Uncharteds – I hear you're building Hetch-drives. I can build those in my _sleep_."

"No word of a lie," Crichton told him dryly. Aeryn reached over, plucked Miriya from John's arm, irritated that he'd made no move to do it himself.

"You have other concerns," Aeryn told her. Shiv crooked a finger.

"Miriya. Come here."

"_Frell._" Miriya breathed, gave up and joined them. She stood by Shiv.

"Well, John?" Crichton turned back to the bone of contention. "I _will_ help you. I can fix all of this in one go. Are you going to give me those calculations or not?"

"No." Aeryn snapped her head around at him_. Had he lost his mind?_ "There's too much at stake."

"Too much…?" Crichton stood. "Did you not hear anything I've said? _Scorpius_ is coming! _Soon._"

"You can help us."

"Give me the calculations, and I will."

"You want to collapse the wormhole!" Crichton's sigh was disgusted.

"You've been here too long, John. You've gotten soft. You've lost sight of the big picture."

John stomped truculently forward.

"I see the big picture! I see it just fine! I'm going to give Earth advanced technology and we're going to…"

Crichton jammed a finger at him.

"_What,_ John? Rule the universe? Build your own Starfleet to protect the planet? You need to _wake up_!"

"I'm not throwing away everything I've worked for!" John was furious now. He could see things starting to slip from his grasp.

"John," Aeryn said sternly. "He has no reason to lie – Scorpius _is_ coming! This is why we came here in the first place!"

"No, Aeryn! I came here to save us from the Ancients and give my planet a future! That wormhole _is_ our future! I can change the world!"

"Listen to yourself," Aeryn gaped at him. John stepped back, tried to get a hold on himself.

"Aeryn… I'll do what's necessary, you know that."

"Do I? _Working Hetch-drives, _John. _When_ were you going to tell me?"

Aeryn was glaring at John, who was beginning to look uncomfortable, but tried to get on top of the situation again.

"Look, it's not important – what _is_ important is that I'm _not_ collapsing that wormhole! There has to be another way!"

Crichton just shook his head, as if he knew this would happen, not at all surprised.

"I tried. You heard me. I offered." He turned to his crew. "You heard me offer. I'll just have to do it my own way."

He walked away, in fact, expecting precisely this. Shiv shoved Miriya ahead of them, she protesting about 'help' and 'circumstances'.

"Wait!" John called after him.

Crichton stopped, turned his head slightly to indicate he was listening.

"What will you do?" Crichton sent him a grin somewhere between a smirk and a snarl.

"What I have to, John. What I'd been hoping to avoid." He started walking again. "There might be a shockwave."

"What? What _shockwave_?"

"Without your calculations, I'm going to have to fall back on brute force. My method will generate _huge_ EMP's, I'm afraid. Enough to blanket the planet." Crichton shrugged. "Unavoidable. Your fault."

Miriya was looking at Crichton hard. Those "packages" he'd gotten delivered to Ogg'M'nendi? Weapons. _Bombs_? What else made shockwaves with huge EMP's? Her mind raced around, formulated, weighed and discarded scenarios.

Miriya sighed internally, but just said calmly, "Massive EMP's would _permanently_ fry any unshielded or non-hardened circuitry. It'd have to be completely replaced. Computer networks, power grids, satellites, things like that."

She was also looking at 'her' Crichton with a new respect.

Crichton waved his hand to take in the room, the world.

"Pre-Industrial Revolution. Planetary dark ages." Another shrug. "Dark, but safe."

"Look – I know there _must_ be other ways. We can deal," his counterpart said from his end, seeing the resolution on Crichton's face. "Don't be selfish, dammit!"

Aeryn saw Crichton stop, tense – relax - then slowly turn, face composed. He walked back to them, and before anyone could stop him, Crichton had leapt the last meter and had John by throat, pinned him to the wall, slowing pushed him up. Aeryn went to grab his arms, shouted at him to stop, but she had a sudden blade in her face from a stone-faced Shiv. The granite calm set to his face and the cold fury in his eye sent an icy chill down Aeryn's spine.

_Death_ was written in that eye – a clinical death that had nothing of passion about it, this death would be an execution, an extermination, done simply to be done and finished.

Haxer had unlimbered two pistols and had one to Captain Dusky's head and the other sweeping the room. He ordered no interference.

Aeryn struggled to keep herself thinking rather than just reacting, but the blade in her face and John's darkening face goaded her on. It had all happened in a matter of seconds.

"Did _you_ …just call _me_ …" He said low and dangerous. "…_selfish_?" John was gasping under the remorseless fingers of his much-stronger counterpart. Dark spots were dancing in his eyes and there was a sudden roaring in his ears. Crichton heard Aeryn's voice say something about "killing", but his world had focused down on the purpling face before him, one that had belonged to him – or so he had thought, once.

This one had been the recipient of the full flower of Aeryn Sun's love and passion, had _full_ disclosure on wormholes, had come _home_, had been safe and was now a frelling _worldwide_ _hero – _and all _he'd_ gotten were scars and pain and death at every step and a cold heart and long dark nights, always running, always alone, and_ still_ doing everything he could to make things right, to do what _had_ to be done, carrying the burden and the remorse and the guilt for what he'd had to become to do it.

_Selfish._ This … _bastard_ piece of thieving _crap_ had just called him _selfish_. He wanted him dead so intensely at that moment he could literally taste it, that metallic tang on his tongue that tasted like blood and steel and hate so pure it justified everything.

"John – you need to _stop_," he heard someone say calmly. He looked up, struggled to fight down the lust for this man's death, saw her gray eyes staring at him intently, not anxious, …curious. She was not reacting the way he'd expected. At all.

Did she just call him John?

With a disgusted sigh, Crichton dropped John to the floor with a contemptuous jerk. John exploded in a fit of cough-hacking wheezes, falling to his knees. Crichton shook his head, backed away, sucked in a deep breath, trying to get control of himself, trying to damp down the unexpected explosion of rage. He'd managed to get straight into him, make him react. He'd come _this_ close to killing him, and frell it all, it had felt… _good_.

He felt a strong hand on his arm, and he snapped his head around, saw Shiv. He stopped, blinked. She _never_ voluntarily touched anyone. She was, as always, calm.

"Give him to me," she said quietly, slender fingers light with an even pressure. "I will send him on the Journey for you." Her orange eyes were open and frank. Crichton felt the anger drain from him. He smiled at her.

"Thank you, Shivi'na. That won't be necessary. I apologize for my temper." He looked at Sun. She was looking down at John with an unreadable emotion on her face. Shiv's fingers lingered for half-a-microt longer and then withdrew.

"We'll prepare my contingency." Crichton looked back at John – so _this_ was "John Crichton" was it? Frell him. He could _have _it. Crichton couldn't resist the surge of new disgust and disdain that rose in him, that powered a well-aimed and very hard kick to John's sternum, causing him to yelp and curl into a choking ball.

"Never presume again, John." He told the prone man struggling for breath. "The next time I'll just fucking kill you."

He shook his head, and refused to himself to apologize for that petty gesture. It felt good, _dammit_! Sun looked back at him, but he ignored her. He had too much to do to waste time figuring out what was going on in her head. He was sore and tired and wanted nothing more than for all of this to be done. He'd already had more than enough.

"You were right, Shiv. It _was_ a mistake coming here. A mistake thinking they'd see any kind of reason."

He started to walk away, hit his comm.

"Chak'sa – plot me a route to…"

_"Crichton,"_ Chak'sa interrupted, her voice grave. _"Something has happened."_ Crichton was about to ask her what, when the _Kennedy's_ alarms started whooping. A call to general quarters blared throughout the ship. Captain Dusky rushed to an intercom.

Earth was under attack.


	2. Chapter 1

**"BY THE VEIL, KHA'JHAV!"**

She said it with a loud sigh, stretching her lithe, strong frame into the rays of the sun as if she would worship it. The sheer golden fabric of the gown she wore blended almost seamlessly in the morning light, for a moment making it appear if she were completely engulfed in the sun's rays.

"R'vhsme," he began, then just shook his head. She was happy, he wasn't going to ruin it. "You take the rising of the sun very seriously." He smiled a lazy smile at her.

"The N'sharrasti take _everything_ very seriously, Crichton." She shook her head, causing the slim cylinders woven through the braids in her white hair to clink and tinkle, the braids wrapped around her head like a turban, some loose and hanging free. "War, life, death, love, sex, eating, drinking, sleeping, waking." She glanced back at him with a gleam in her eye. She was well aware of how she looked. "We prefer our lives honest."

R'vhsme had the strong bone structure of her race, large piercing sloe-eyes, a clear brown/green, a straight nose, full lips, and strong white teeth, canines ever-so-slightly sharp. Her body was athletic, flat stomach and wide-hipped, superbly muscled, skin browned from many suns, marked here and there by what the N'sharrasti called, along with her hair cylinders, "sigils' – elegant tattoos that used an elaborately symbolic hieroglyphic system to detail the many campaigns in which she'd participated. To any other N'sharrasti, they were as easily read as any street sign. The cylinders in her hair did roughly the same thing, their colour, length and placement providing the same service as her tattoos, except they were campaigns and kills, not necessarily when and whom. There was an entire agency that regulated both tattoos and cylinders, their colour and length and meanings.

Crichton had called them her "warning label", at which she'd been delighted and had laughed over a good while. She laughed easily, wept openly, was fiery in her anger and her lovemaking, at times as ethereal as fog in a forest, and as strong as a steel beam.

Her full name was R'vhsme Aimihni Kar'rei, the soon-to-be Matriarch of her Clan, sixty-four cycles old – considered still rather young to be considered for the Matriarch (_there was some controversy, but reputation spoke for itself here, and hers was rapidly becoming legendary_), and was learned, adept in multiple scientific disciplines, and could speak, without microbes, twenty-seven separate languages and write all the ones she could speak that had written components.

She had also killed one hundred and thirty-seven Scarrans hand-to-hand and personally, that is to say – alone - destroyed a Peacekeeper garrison that had had the effrontery to build within their systems. To date, she had fought in seven major interstellar wars.

N'sharrasti always appeared in any major galactic war. _Who_ they fought for was always closely noted and feared, and all sides wanted them on _their_ sides. Most times, the N'sharrasti fought for themselves, Clans and Worlds – and when they fought for others, the reasons were always their own. They were not mercenaries, although they did not consider the profession dishonorable; most simply could not afford their services, if only because one never knew by what price they could be bought.

He'd met her on Paradon, embroiled in that stupid debacle "The War of Ten" as Dar'shanne liked to call it, as if giving it a title made it legendary.

Crichton just smiled a crooked smile to himself. Paradon's misfortune was that it had been the repository of some ancient – and substantially valuable - treasure. A rather young and excitable new pirate recruit had found it as part of a scouting party and shouted his enthusiasm to the stars. Since all the pirate bands tended to spy on all the others, it wasn't long before all Hezmana was loosed. The natives locked themselves in their bunkers, and their military geared up to drive the pirates off the planet.

Two hundred _tons_ of very serious treasure brought them all out of the woodwork.

She had been there alone, and he'd learned later that it had been simply a test – part of her Matriarch trials. She'd saved him from a bunch of Wāko Navar, he'd 'saved' her from the "Pirate King's" never-ending quest for notoriety, which had him trying to trick R'vhsme into killing a few people he didn't like – namely Crichton and Reihna and a few others. Had the contract been an honourable one, Crichton knew that he'd have long since been dead.

Crichton had, fortunately, uncovered what Dar'shanne had been up to, and when she'd discovered the ploy, she'd broken the pirate's spine. Dar'shanne was extremely lucky that he'd immediately confessed and begged for her mercy – even if it did cost him fifty of his crew and a broken back.

It was only his damn good fortune that Crichton had decided to vouch for him, which spared him his limbs and his life. Dar'shanne had owed him, and owed him _big time_. Only a cybernetic shunt and splint allowed the man to walk. It was a pirate thing, definitely, that while hard feelings were forever and always just under the surface, the smart ones knew when to step back. Hell, Dar'shanne had reworked it in his own head so that he'd somehow managed to come out on top.

R'vhsme sat on the railing of her balcony, the golden light of a N'sharrasti morning bathing her in its glow. She seemed to blend into the white stone, another piece of elegant sculpture pale against the greenery beyond her Keep.

"Why do you call me 'Kha'jhav', anyway? Why 'Cold Shadow'?"

She chuckled softly.

"Because you try too hard." She was silent for a while, just content to watch the sun rise, smell the clean warm air and inhale the pleasant fragrances.

"I have wondered," she asked him, conversationally, "why you were on Paradon. Oh, I had heard of your reputation, of course, but I would not have thought you a thief, not of that breed."

"I'm _not_ a thief, or of any breed, R'vhsme. You know that." They'd talked. About things, about being a duplicate. She had a manner that just seemed to draw him out.

She seemed to sigh, rose, walked with an easy grace toward him.

"I know nothing of the kind. You did not belong there. No more than I did, not really."

"I don't know if I belong anywhere", he answered, with no little irony. He sat up on the bed, comfortable, ran his hands through his hair. It had gotten a bit longer since he'd left Moya five monens ago.

He'd thought to change his face in one of his deeper bouts of self-pity, tried one of those gene-altering places, but didn't have the balls for anything except some hair growth supplement that just made him look like a heavy metal lead singer and drop twenty pounds.

He'd put it back with R'vhsme's help – she had an excellent exercise regimen, and the food on N'sharrast was first rate. The hair he'd had shortened, but not by much. "A change was a good as a rest", his grandmother used to say, and he was no one to argue with that sharp lady.

R'vhsme halted at the end of the bed, cocked her head at him, smiled faintly.

He could see her eying his hair, and began to protest when she went to a shelf and pulled down a pouch and he heard the tinkle of those cylinders she wore in her hair.

"What are you planning to do with those?" She stopped before him. He was really hoping it wasn't some alien marriage proposal or something similar.

"As I said – you fought well, on Paradon and since. You have earned a sigil, I think."

"Look, I appreciate the thought," He began, but she simply stepped forward, climbed on the bed.

"I will weave one for you behind your right ear."

"No, R'vhsme, look, I – " he protested, but she was having none of it.

"It's a warrior's affectation here," She'd told him, climbing onto his lap to do it, pinning him effectively, began weaving deftly with her slim strong fingers. "It makes you someone."

"I'm no one. I'm not real." he told her, patiently trying to explain it again as she wove expertly. "I'm no warrior, either."

"Reality is highly suspect at the best of times", she laughed softly. "You'll be a warrior all right – you can't be anything else."

"You sound very sure of that." He told her.

"As sure as I am of _that_," She laughed, shifted on his lap, pushed very firm breasts against his chest.

"It's a side effect of the hair stuff I bought on Dresn." He tried not to chuckle. That had been monens ago.

"If you wish." She finished, but didn't get up. "A pity though. I am so… _serious_." She shifted herself again, which didn't help at all.

"Okay…" he smiled simply because he liked the idea. "So it's not _entirely_ the hair drug…" He frowned, eyed her with some trepidation. "What did I do to merit this good fortune, R'vhsme?"

She simply looked back at him, eyes direct and frank.

"A true warrior is one who unflinchingly faces the reality of existence, John," she said in an even tone, the first time she'd ever called him "John". "The _honesty _of existence. Not the 'truth', for that is mercurial and changes constantly, but the _facts_ of living, the very reason there is life at all. The day will come when you will understand this completely – and you _will _be a warrior." She smiled at him then, abruptly. "What you were meant to be." She looked away, and her eyes were shadowed. "You care for me, do you not?"

Anything other than "absolutely" would have been a damn lie, and he knew it.

"Yes, I do. I think you know that." He tried some levity. "I would have thought that was kinda obvious." She shifted again.

"_This_ tells me you desire me, John. That is not the same thing."

"I know – I'm…, I didn't mean…"

She shook her head.

"Your _feelings_ are for me," she put her hand on his chest. "But your _heart_ does not belong to me – nor is it ever likely to…" she paused, searched his eyes. "I do not think it belongs to _you_, either."

He felt vaguely ashamed, felt as if he'd let her down, but said it anyway. _Facts only_. With this woman, use the truth always or be never forgiven.

"You… are a wise woman, R'vhsme. I'm sorry."

She laid a gentle hand on his face, smiled that knowing smile.

"Never apologize for the facts, John. It simply is."

"It sucks."

"For you, yes," she smiled impishly. "_I_ _am_ rather amazing, you know."

He put his hands up defensively. "Oh, no argument here. I may be dense, but I'm no fool."

She kissed him then, and Crichton offered no resistance.

He was, he knew, quickly becoming smitten with her. Hard-smitten. He wouldn't have believed it, but it was true. He felt that it should have bothered him, but it didn't. He had no one, nowhere to go, no future to speak of, no ambition needed. He was only the Creature.

Not that it mattered. He was free of it all, could do anything.

He was alone in the universe now…

* * *

><p><strong>CRICHTON AWOKE WITH A START, CURSED.<strong>

He'd fallen asleep. Wouldn't do to get them both killed. He rubbed his eyes, wished he'd had a decent cup of chav, or a Raslak. A nice Crinton Azzel, vintage, harvested under the perihelion passage of the second moon. Good cycle for Raslak, that one. The last one he'd had had been with…

_R'vhsme._ It had not been an unwelcome dream, but he wondered why he'd dream about her now. It had been a while since he'd thought about her, and he felt vaguely guilty about that, put it aside.

_Guilt_, she had told him once, _is for those who refuse to face facts. _

She'd offered him a place on N'sharrast, with her, at her side in her Clan.

He had been sorely tempted. He felt along the back of his head, found her cylinders where'd she'd woven them, was glad Koiban had not needed to remove them.

A genuine smile of affection crossed his face as he thought about the by-now Matriarch. Peace. Contentment. One unbelievably beautiful, intelligent, capable female. A home, a family; okay, _and_ the occasional firefight or out-and-out war, but, hey, that was the N'sharrasti way. How was that any different to how he lived now – well, minus the peace, contentment and happiness thing?

_You could always go back, _some wayward impulse told him.

There's no going back, he told it. To anywhere.

Crichton had left and she had let him. He did a quick slap-check of his weapons, risked a quick glance out into what was left of the street.

He wondered what R'vhsme would think of him now.

"Face the realities, man." He muttered to himself. "First things first."

_Dammit._

He could use some serious firepower. All he had was his twin pistols and his Forge rifle.

Crichton looked up and down the street, everything blue-pale in the half-full moonlight, saw no movement. Fires snapped in the distance. Somewhere far away a siren wailed. Smoke drifted above the skeletons of trees that had lined the streets. Across the street from his location, the cars that had been ablaze a few hours ago had finally burned themselves out.

He pulled on and snapped down his 'liberated' night vision goggles, scanned.

_Nothing._

Which meant precisely nothing.

He returned to his position, stuffed the NVD's in a longcoat pocket, tried to focus on getting actual rest, decided after a few minutes to just grab _some_ sleep. It was about an hour to dawn, and he figured he'd best get all he could. He pulled his longcoat's hood up, pulled it over his head, ignoring the murmurs of pain his body was giving out. He'd gone through worse. He pulled his coat around him against the early morning chill, put a pistol on his lap, did his best to get comfortable in the rubble of what was left of someone's rec room.

Across from him, lying on a broken couch, he heard her breathing change, ever so slightly, knew she was awakening.

_Whatever._ She was enough of a professional yet to not disturb him.

He glanced over, saw the pale orb of her face in the moonlight, caught himself staring after a few moments, unclenched his fist. He wouldn't sleep. He was too tired for that. Even with his suppressant, she had an effect on him. He started to wonder if the damn thing was wearing out, felt behind his right ear, pressed lightly. A small zap of current reminded him that it was still active. He pressed again, held it down this time, wiped the last few days clean of any emotional residue he might have begun accumulating over the woman laying over there, felt better.

_Face the realities._

It was all he had.

* * *

><p><strong>Aeryn came awake slowly<strong>, uncharacteristically, the pain in her leg a dull throb, tasting salt and feeling the night-chill on her skin where it had been exposed. There was a weight on her and it took her a moment to realize that it was her spare longcoat, liberated from Moya on her initial visit.

A glance around reminded her that she was in a blasted-out basement, and she could see moonlight coming down from a hole in the foundation.

By the quality of the lightening sky, it was still early morning, perhaps an arn just before dawn. She looked around, saw the Other across the basement from her, back to the wall in a corner, sitting upright in a large recliner, coat pulled around him, hood over his face, head down slightly.

She ignored the throb in her leg as best she could and looked him over. He was dirty, dried blood on his face that she could see, hands, abrasions and cuts here and there, one on his head that had bled rather heavily. He had not tended it. There was a shadow of a beard on his face, and she could see grey flecking itself throughout. _Stress._ He looked tired, but his one blue eye was gazing steadily out toward the street, jaw firmly set, face composed and cold. Aeryn was struck by the sudden realization that he had not slept, but had sat there all night, keeping watch.

She remembered the body she'd seen on her first meeting with him, on the carrier, a set to his face and eye that said this was no one to underestimate – so different from John, the comfortable tech, safe and secure and at home. Instincts dulled, now a quibbler, a negotiator like Rygel, wheedling and cajoling to get what he wanted. She had a hard time believing the Other _asked_ for anything.

Hard muscle was packed everywhere. One of his custom pulse pistols was in his long-fingered hand. She remembered those fingers - they could deftly repair a delicate part, grip with a painful intensity or caress with exquisite gentleness. She saw scars on them, like the scars on his face, found herself wondering what he'd endured since she'd gone.

_That_ was a _warrior_ sitting there, and she was both heartened and saddened by that particular fact. She sighed to herself, looked away, told herself not to think about it. There was too much to do, and she could not allow her thoughts to go down the byways they seemed to want to travel. She had other responsibilities.

He shifted slightly and she looked back at him. He was still glaring at the hole, had not looked at her.

"Yeah – I still _look_ Human, at least." He told her softly, expression unchanging, not looking at her. His breath smoked out in the chill morning air. The voice was still cold, but had a weary edge to it.

"Situation?" She tried.

"Under control." He said, a slight burr of irritation there. _I _do_ know what I'm doing, thanks._ She could hear it implied. She didn't doubt it, not anymore.

"You're hurt." She told him, indicating the gash on his head, just a note of concern there. He shrugged, brushing it aside.

"The crash. It's nothing." Something came winging from the darkness. She caught it.

"Your leg?" PK meds. She found herself inexplicably grateful, gulped down the pain reliever, felt her leg stiffen, then relax, the pain ebbing away. _Standard commando field medicine,_ she thought, admiring his foresight. Someone, she noted, had also cleaned and dressed her wound.

"Sore. I think it's functional now, though."

"Good. We can't stay here forever. You're of no use to me crippled." She blinked. The soldier's assessment. How many times had a Crichton heard that coming from her? Had it felt the same way? _Someone_ had carried her from the crash wreckage, however.

"I can walk. Anything from the comms?" She asked. He shook his head.

"No. Still too much interference from the weapon residue. Some Hemetrion-based dampening field."

"A Stomper," she told him. "Standard for large scale urban pacification." She checked her pulse pistol. "The dampening field is new, however."

"No," He corrected her, to her surprise. "The destruction cone is too small for a standard Stomper."

He got up, shrugged his longcoat to resettle it comfortably on his frame, did another survey of the street outside. Picked at random, this once-town was now number two destroyed - a smouldering crater, it had looked like some giant had _punched_ the town from above, or had 'stomped it'. At the bottom of this rather deep crater was a flattened pile of debris – what was left of the houses and cars and buildings that had been directly under the blast. He and Aeryn were on the outskirts of it, and they were hiding from something else, entirely.

The town's population had been around twelve thousand fifteen hundred or so, now down to three thousand.

All told, this Peacekeeper bitch commander - one Nerada Lamm, Miriya had informed him - had so far killed thirty-five thousand people.

Survivors claimed a UFO materialized over their towns, there was a metallic announcement, and from the recording of it he'd heard, it had been culled from new reports, a bunch of different voices stitched together to demand the surrender of John Crichton - and then the town would be flattened, "as a warning".

One a day, every day, until he was surrendered. They were up to two now, and one more expected today. John was currently hiding under Cheyenne Mountain, the government refusing to let him surrender. He'd protested, but deals were then proposed and bargains struck, and now Crichton and Aeryn were here, the result of a crashed OH-58D Kiowa Warrior. They had been on their way to rendezvous with one of Moya's pods, but they'd got a bit sidetracked.

Several something inexplicables had happened, and he still had no answers. Shiv had bolted from the _Vengeance_ with no explanation, and had vanished. Haxer had apparently suddenly gone insane, and _stolen_ his Vigilante after they'd ferried everyone over to Cheyenne Mountain. Moya's pod had turned back, but D'Argo and Chiana were down here somewhere, D'Argo's last comm from _Lo'Lha_ about being attacked by some kind of drone.

Probably of the same kind that had been hunting he and Aeryn for the last half-day.

_Well-programmed machine, _she thought, joining him at the entrance. _Too well-programmed._ There was no sound but the whirl of wind and the occasional rumble of thunder in the distance. Every once in a while, lightning would flare. A storm was rolling over the area, and soon. Something else they didn't need.

He saw Sun's lips purse, and then was regarded by a pair of grey eyes.

"Don't bother," He told her, in that voice, deeper, but still the same. "It was necessary."

She blinked, tucked her gratitude away for another time. A moment went by. Then, "We can't stay here for much longer." she said, that smooth fluid contralto splashing up against his barriers, clinging a moment, falling away. "Ideas?"

_Yeah, right. Do the soldier thing. That's easiest._

"Last I saw, we were being shadowed by one Mark IV Seeker, one Mark VI Hammer-class, - both seriously upgraded." He told her curtly. "So far, no pursuit."

She nodded, long black hair flowing around her head. He looked back out the hole, glad it was still dark, doing his best to ignore the scent of her. A sliver of light was lighting up the sky below the approaching storm, but once the storm came over, it'd still be dark. Hopefully they could use that.

"Where are we, exactly?"

"Pretty much the only intact house in this neighbourhood. It's a little obvious, but it's all we've got," he informed her. "Rest stop, about two kilometers from the crash site." He held up a small device. "For the moment, we're good."

"Any damage?" She asked him, meaning to himself. _He had carried her the entire way…?_

"Only to the Seeker." He still did not look at her, his face shrouded in the shadows of his hood. "None to the Hammer. Its carapace is probably a Charbydium or a Heliodyne composite." He told her. "It was engaging a couple of SWAT vehicles when I got you out of there."

Aeryn nodded. She wasn't surprised he'd known what they were or that he'd managed to incapacitate one. Crichtons were quick studies.

Yes. Crichton_s_.

Frell.

"Why 'Ne'varre'?" She asked him, out of nowhere.

He shrugged. "Good as any." He didn't turn back from the window. She watched him.

"It means…" she began.

"I know what it means." He smiled to himself. "I've had a few."

She nodded, "I suppose you would have," she said, began with, "Look, I appreciate that…" He interrupted her with a cold,

"You talk too much. Rest your leg. You're gonna need it soon enough."

Aeryn bit down the jolt of irritation at being dismissed, then bowed to his logic. He was right. She _was_ talking too much. She went back to the sofa, tried to get comfortable. He was _deliberately_ being curt, she noted. Aeryn wondered if talking was something he did much anymore, found the thought faintly disturbing.

Crichton, however, was no longer paying any attention to her.

* * *

><p><strong>"Not an auspicious start," Harvey said.<strong>

Crichton merely snorted in derision.

"Yeah. I've done better." He thought at his irritant. "But the day's just beginning. Where the hell have you been, anyway?"

"Me? Where I always am."

"Don't go all existentialist on me, Harve. It's too damn early in the morning."

"I have merely been in the lower depths of your memories, John. Exploring your childhood, contrasting it with Scorpius'. There are some rather interesting parallels."

"Yeah, _sure_ there are."

"Well, you would probably have to be me to notice them." He paused, 'stepped' around Crichton, looked around the room, at Aeryn, back to him.

"Well… this is very interesting."

"_What's_ interesting, Harve?"

Harvey walked to where she sat, looked her over.

"The contrast of the reality of Earth and your memories of it." He smiled, or used whatever it was that passed for a smile on _that _face. "Going by your early memories on Moya, I almost expected some kind of paradise. _This_ is _not_ paradise."

Crichton just grunted.

"Well, I _didn't _expect a paradise." He almost smiled. "What I expected is pretty much what we've got."

Harvey actually _sighed_.

"Yes, you've been very practical of late. Are we in serious trouble?"

Crichton looked over at the Scorpius doppelganger. He seemed a bit frayed around the edges.

"Serious enough. We're running out of time – and I'm _always_ practical." He countered, "It's why I'm still alive. You all right? You're looking a bit… worn."

"Convergence of favorable probabilities may had played a significant role in that survival, John – and I feel fine, thank you."

"Yeah, okay. Well, I don't discount luck being a rather large part of it. You roll with what you're dealt."

Harvey finally looked back pointedly at Sun behind them.

"Unfortunately, luck tends to be rather fickle."

"Hence practicality. Can't depend on luck all the time."

"Take this, for instance. All of this – here you are, on Earth, with your counterpart, hunted by Peacekeeper Acquisition Drones, and Aeryn Sun not three metras away – certainly nothing you would have planned for. Your crew _suddenly_ mutinies? _Shivi'na_? That is not even remotely likely. This does not, as you like to say, add up. Not at all." He sniffed. "And no comms? How convenient is that?"

Crichton scowled at him, said dryly, "These things happen all the time, Harve."

"True, but you know the old saying: Once is luck, twice is coincidence, three times must be deliberate."

"I didn't think that Scorp had a superstitious neuron to his name."

Harvey folded his arms behind his back, paced.

"Of course not, nor am I suggesting that some metaphysical entity is directing these circumstances, but this is not making sense. People are unpredictable, John, but only to a point. Some things are too ingrained to change."

"Uh-huh – and people see Jesus in tacos." His tone said that it was just as likely. "Cut to the chase, Harve."

"I cannot say how, John, but we are being manipulated."

"All of us – at once? By who?" His voice was skeptical.

"Unknown. But these things are going against logic."

"My wounds feel real enough."

"And were I to say, light a cigarette, you would smell the smoke, John. Real, as your lovely R'vhsme would have said, is relative."

"You stay the hell away from those memories, Harve. Only warning."

A nod.

"I merely bring this up for your consideration. I can feel it on the edges of our consciousness. Something's there, trying to pluck strings. I think your implant may be blocking it – I can feel it working harder than before."

Again the skepticism.

"Seems far-fetched." Crichton thought a moment. "Someone trying to mind-frell me? Who do we know that could warp reality this much? Ancients? Why would they bother?"

"They do not have to warp reality – just your version of it." Harvey shrugged. "I am merely doing my job, John. Consider it as you will."

Crichton nodded.

"All right, Harve. I'll concede that. For the moment, however, I'm going to pretend that I need to take my current situation seriously. All right with you?"

A nod from Harve.

"So - you must find a way out of this predicament, and collapse the wormhole."

"Yeah – but first I'm going to have to trash that Hammer."

"They want the other Crichton, John, which is unacceptable. It may be time to consider what may be …expendable." He glanced back at Sun for emphasis.

"Not an option." Crichton replied, voice hard.

"You may have to consider it."

"No."

"John – what is more important – securing this planet, protecting that knowledge or – "

"_No_, Harve. Don't go there again."

Harvey just nodded.

"Very well. Can you destroy the Drone?"

"Uh – _d'uh_."

"And secure the other Crichton?"

"I don't need to. Eventually, he's gonna smarten up – or he's gonna be forced to, if he hasn't already."

"Can you avoid killing him?"

"Who said anything about _killing_ him?"

"You _have_ thought about it, John."

"So what? I've thought about killing _you_ on any number of occasions."

"Don't let your feelings for Aeryn Sun blind you to larger responsibilities."

Crichton rolled his eye.

"There are no feelings there, Harve. You know that."

"You've repressed them, John, not disposed of them. And she has more power over you than you realize."

"I don't need relationship advice from you, phantasm."

"Touché." Harvey inclined his head.

"You've surmounted annoying, Harve. You have ten seconds to tell me something useful."

"Very well. One thing, before I go." Harvey stepped back from him.

"What?"

"Stark."

"What about him?"

"Ask Haxer about him." Harve started to fade.

"Why?"

"Just ask him." Harve vanished, and Crichton shook his head. How would Hax know anything about Stark?

* * *

><p><strong>"SO… YOU'RE ALSO JOHN CRICHTON.", MIRIYA SAID FROM ACROSS THE TABLE.<strong>

"No." He said, not looking up. "I'm the original."

"The others don't seem to think so."

"I don't particularly care what they think." He said, finally looking up. "That was another life." He chewed on the end of his stylus for a moment. "I am sorry things turned out the way they have, but I'm not sorry for trying to get my life back. I never _intended_ to go out there in the _first place_ – and I _never_ hid the fact that I wanted to get away and back here – any way I could."

"I can understand that," she said, a broad smile on her face. "I've been in similar situations. Wanting to go home, unable to, stopped by things I couldn't control. It's a rather large pain in the eema, to be perfectly candid."

"You've got that right." He said, bending back to his calculations. They were in a large lab, Crichton and his team from Groom Lake were working hard to come up with something to stop the impending attacks by that Marauder. Miriya had been left behind to help – "penance, if you're serious," Crichton had told her.

_Penance? Not hardly_, she thought with a small smile. Crichton had left her exactly where she'd wanted to be. She was feeling a little odd, however. Iriya was flashing back and forth through their shared consciousness, they swapping places randomly and neither liked it. Still, she had a mission, after all…

"So you're the original?" She asked, expanding her smile. He didn't even think about it.

"I am."

Miriya began slowly walking around the large table, a confident feminine sway accompanying her.

"How are you so certain? I've seen scans of John – the Crichton I know, I mean, and there's nothing to indicate he's a replicant, or a clone or any kind of copy at all. No genetic drift, no cellular degradation, nothing."

"_I'm_ the original." He said again, irked.

"But how do you know?"

"Look, I just _know_, okay? The Ancients came to _me, _they unlocked all the data _I _have, they gave _me_ the ability to use wormholes as I saw fit. Did they do that for the other one?"

"Uh, well, not that I've seen," she said, having no idea who these 'Ancients' were. Something to do with wormholes, more than likely. She could feel Iriya stirring. "That's your proof? You could also have just as easily been _convenient_."

Yeah, he'd thought of that. That didn't mean he liked thinking about it, however.

"Aeryn chose_ me_." He added, still irked, knowing that neither assertion proved anything.

"That's not exactly proof, either - if you don't mind me saying so." She said, looking skeptical. _Damn. Sharp lady._

"It's an instinctual thing, okay? I know who I am, I know what I am. The evidence, such as it is, says I _am_ John Crichton."

Miriya came closer, smiled again. Her scent wafted over him, and he swallowed. What did Aeryn say – some kind of pheromone thing? _Fuck. It didn't help_. This woman was pushing his damn buttons. She was only about a meter away from him.

"Well, no one's denying that. Even my Crichton thinks you are."

He blinked, not expecting that.

"Really? He thinks I'm the real one?"

"He hasn't put it _exactly_ like that, mind you, but he has given off that impression. Not that anyone up there calls that anything but dren."

Crichton just sighed, looked back down at the calculations.

"Why do you care, anyway? Are you Crichton's, uh… girlfriend?" _No. Don't feel jealous. You have Aeryn. You should not be jealous._

"'Girlfriend'? I'm not familiar with that term. We've recreated on occasion, if that's what you mean. I enjoy Crichton quite a bit." She emphasized the "Crichton" in such a way as to include him – or to imply she'd have no problem including him in the future. He found himself both wishing they were alone and he were running away. He should have her segregated, his brain told him. The rest of him told his brain to shut the hell up, and mind its own business.

"As to why I care – well, I don't, not really. I just find it fascinating."

_ Damn. He was jealous!_

"Are you a scientist – uh, tech?"

"Yes." She nodded. "I work primarily with ships, I rebuilt Crichton's Vigilante. My specialty is in integrating disparate technologies. But my interests are wide. I'm extremely…" she was directly behind him now, slowly drew a hand across his lower back. "…good."

"Good for you. Always keep an open mind." He tried to go back to work, tried concentration on vectors and sine waves, and not the way she smelled, which was damn good..

"I certainly try." She purred at him. "I have another question – my Crichton has excellent technical abilities, but he doesn't use them much. Are you a fighter like he is?"

"No. I don't like using violence. I'm not a killer. I'm a scientist."

"He's not a killer!" Miriya told him, annoyed by the implication. "Necessity has made him adapt."

"Look… Ms. Breannados, was it?" She nodded. "I really don't want to talk about this. I didn't ask to be copied, and I wasn't exactly ecstatic about leaving everyone behind. I had to go or all of my friends would have been killed. I went, and Aeryn chose to come with me. I'm sorry if he couldn't handle that, and I'm sorry that he has to deal with everything he's had to deal with – but it has nothing to do with me."

Iriya muttered in the back of her head, deciding suddenly that she didn't like this man with Crichton's face much at all. Miriya shushed her. It wasn't about liking or disliking this one. It was about getting the job done.

But Iriya wasn't finished, she surged to the forefront, shoved Miriya aside.

"Odd. You don't sound sorry. From where I stand, it has _everything_ to do with _you_." She planted a fist on the table. John blinked at her. That was the voice that had shoved a pulse pistol into his groin. "That Peacekeeper team isn't after Crichton _here_. They want _you_. Crichton had no plans on coming here. He was going to close the wormhole from the other side. _Events _brought him here, not his own choice."

John just frowned.

"Look, we've got work to do. You're supposed to be helping me find some way of tracking that ship – before they destroy another town."

Miriya sighed, yelled at Iriya once to not interfere again, and nodded.

"Do you still have Moya's pod here?" She had time, She'd make sure she'd have all kinds of proximity to him. He nodded.

"Fine. We can use that. Let's go."

Watching those hips sway away, John wished he didn't have to, all the while wanting to run to catch up.

Pheromones or not, it was going to be a _loooooong_ day.


	3. Chapter 2

**Author's Note:**_ Okay, so it's _not_ looking like it'll be _every_ week. I'd rather get as close as I can to quality (such as it is) than crank out a lot of substandard quantity.__ As usual, feel free to praise or dissect._**  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong>THE VOICES WERE INDISTINCT, FRAGMENTED, HARD TO FOLLOW. <strong>

She recognized none of them, found it hard to concentrate around the throbbing pain in her head. Slowly, words began to coalesce and make sense, after a fashion.

"What you fink, Ian'la? Is the She alife?"

"_Nefre'dah!_ Methinks she stays on this mortal plane a whole more yonder, no?"

"I do not understand you, " she told them, tongue feeling half-a-motra thick, as she realized she was prone, fought to sit, or rise or move _any_thing. Her microbes were having trouble sorting out the words. Either she was completely mind-garbled, or something was very wrong.

"She _is_ speaking, I wager. _Mendalah yavon, jassa of'a nah."_

"Not that tongue, Jabr. She's talking the offworld tongue, maybe the Sebbatti lingo."

Something rang a bell suddenly in her head. 'Sebbatti' was the _Torvan_ word for 'Sebacean'. The Torvan were the merchant/service/chattel class of the warrior 'Eraka. That meant she was _far_ outside the space she knew. The Torvan were also reasonably harmless. The 'Eraka were all female – and the Torvan were all male. They had been taught from time immemorial to revere anything female.

This was extremely irregular. She should not be here and there was no possible way she _could_ be here. She was on Earth. The Eso Ascendancy was on the farside of the Peacekeeper Influence, halfway to her homeworld. It was the site of her third assassination commission.

Made no sense at all.

Shiv stood up, clutched her head at the wave of intense vertigo-induced nausea that sent rolling through her, fought down the desire to retch. Also most peculiar. Thantados had all kinds of compensatory abilities built into them. Shiv had a series of small sacs in her skull that were filled with a light/heavy liquid blend that acted like a gyro and stabilized her. She did _not_ get vertigo. Her profession often required her to be flexible, literally and figuratively.

A glance at the two males showed them to be waiting - curious, but patient.

So, assess:

_Damage?_ Seemed to be minimal, aside from the sick feeling in her head and stomach. Not impossible, but exceedingly out of the ordinary.

She looked herself over. She was dressed in her usual attire, blades in place.

She tried to focus internally, feel her Litany. It was interrupted by:

"This'n not the place for you, Mistress," One of the males said, finally. "This is a male residential."

The other one jabbed him in annoyance, which he ignored. It was then that Shiv realized that she was outside, in an alley, a service accessway.

She tried to push herself up again, was caught and pulled to her feet by the male closest when she realized she wasn't having much success. She swayed, another wave of nausea rolling over her, managed to stay upright.

"You would be wise to step away from me," she said, when she could stand without assistance, her innate distaste at being touched flaring. It wasn't a form of prejudice. If someone could touch you, they could kill you.

"Where, exactly, am I?" Just because it _looked _ like a particular place…

Jabr, the one who had spoken first, spoke up. He and his companion had backed away.

"You're in the Des'r Prefecture of the Capital of M'broa Province on Edja, Prime Colony world of the Eso Ascendency."

"This be the male quarters of the city, Mistress. We see none too many of females here."

"Save for the law, o'course."

"I see." Her head and stomach were settling down, but that was relative. "How did I arrive here? Only an arn ago I was on Earth."

"Forgiveness, Mistress. We know nothing of your Earth or such." Jabr said. "We but found you as part of our reg'lar duties."

Shiv thought. "The last time I was in Ascendency space was…" Yes. Eight cycles ago. A contract to eliminate a Torvan Collective Representative, one who had overstepped his bounds and had apparently begun some kind of emancipation movement. Most Torvan found the idea both ridiculous and completely fantastical. _ Equal rights for males? The idea! _

She turned a hard orange glare on the two.

"Do you know Hisma Nareek?"

"We aren't to talk o' that one, Mistress." Ian'la told her, casting about furtively. "Tis a name struck from memory."

Shiv crossed her arms. "How long ago did this erasure occur?"

"20 revs, Mistress." Shiv did some calculations. Almost 8 cycles.

_Impossible._

"Explain how I came to be here," she demanded, hand caressing her cuirass of blades, unmistakable in threat. Jabr swallowed.

"As we said, Mistress, we found ye in wherein you were." Ian'la nodded emphatically.

"We canna lie to ye, Mistress."

Shiv assessed, gauged their responses. Impossible situation, but the Torvan before her were telling the truth. It was bred into them that females were superior. One lied to a She at their peril.

"Very well. I believe you. I nevertheless require an explanation. Have you seen…"

"Shivi'na," she heard exclaimed behind her, and she knew there and then something was _very_ wrong. She turned.

"Leave them alone," he told her, with a laugh. "They are used to common females… something you are definitely _not_."

It was Thadon No'Halladan.

* * *

><p><strong>SHE FELT AS IF SHE WERE FALLING.<strong>

Haxer – Ander – he had done something, something he shouldn't have done, something inexplicable, even for him. He'd come to her, told her go with him, and she had – he _was _one of the very few males she'd ever trusted. If she were honest, he was the _only_ one she actually… she was distracted suddenly, there was a smear of dark blood on her console, and it looked suspiciously like Scarran blood**…**

**…it was a room of doors of Scarran design**, walls the color of old bone, they likewise looked as if they'd been spattered with blood. Stylized faces peered at her from the wall, and when one suddenly opened its eyes and look directly at her, she knew where she was – Avrek-Vatall, the Scarran version of Hezmana.

"_Murrrderrrrerrrr!"_ the voice intoned in a sibilant-rattle tone, eyes black and white and black again. Needle teeth flashed in its leering mouth. "Butcher! Killer-whore! Slave! _Annnnimaaaal!" _

She felt that old hot fury at the word, took a step, and the wall-face let out a sharp "Ha!" and she was suddenly sucked backward through a door, to fall into**…**

**…the age of fifteen cycles**, having just been taken from the dormitory and transferred to the Emperor Staleek's Inner Harem, an exceptional honor for both herself and her breeders. She had been bred especially for her role, only one of a dozen (_out of several hundred, the rest having all died_) – the so-called "Chosen Trues" – a viable, perfectly functioning blend of Scarran and Sebacean.

She had no need for the Sacred Plant. She was free of that crutch – a triumph of Scarran science over evolution, although it was not lost on her that that science had been made possible by their very addiction.

She had the best traits of both species; although had the public known they would have considered her an abomination – as Scarrans had since; but it was her honor - Staleek had hand-picked her. When she inquired as to her duties, she was told simply that, while she was the part of a great plan, it was not necessary for she to know anything other than that she _was_ a part. She had no duties other than obeying her Emperor.

He would come for her. Eventually.

When that day finally arrived, she – having no name, as that was at the Emperor's pleasure to bestow, did as she had been instructed. He had ordered her to stand, to disrobe and stand straight. She could only watch her younger self, but she could feel every emotion, the rough floor below her feet, the air around her body.

He inspected her. Behind him, two females in the black regalia of the Science Corp. After a half-arn of his inspection, he'd told her to demonstrate her level of 'lensing' – using her heat radiance attack. She could not, feeling an inexplicable shame because she couldn't. Apparently, this was something the Corp neglected to tell His Magnificence. It was freedom from the Plant or that ability.

He growled something to the Science Corp females, and with no preliminaries – or warning – Staleek roughly turned her around and mounted her.

She screamed as he shredded those delicate tissues. He had no finesse, did not go gently. Scarran penises were as armored and jagged as the rest of them, and she did _not_ possess the standard Scarran genitalia.

He simply ignored her screams, her eventual whimpers, did not stop. Half-an-arn later, he finished, thrust her bleeding body away, turned and stalked off.

Through her haze of pain, she heard her handlers enter, tell her that he'd found her satisfactory, despite her defect, if 'softer' than he was used to – she barely heard any of it. Through the agony she told them of her pain, and they tsk-tutted and only perfunctorily treated.

The next day he returned, and it was like the first time. The next day the same. He noticed eventually, and when she replied to his demand for information, he'd been disgusted.

"Defective," he cursed, spat. "_and_ weak." She was sent physicians that gave her _proper_ treatment, and she was allowed a monen to heal, _"Treat the animal,"_ she heard him mutter…

…abruptly she was back in the room of doors, the face cackling. "Defective whore!" It laughed. "Trash to be thrown _awaaaaaay_!"

Again that sudden pull through a door, again dropped into her previous self**…**

**…her handler had returned at the end of the monen** – a Kalish named Sovo-something - she knew his face because she had dreamed of his extinction for many cycles - and he looked like a chastised Vorc, clucked his tongue and told her that she had been 'demoted' – out of the Harem.

She felt a moment's relief.

She would, instead, be a gift for a high minister – another 'honor'.

She knew that was lie. _There was no honor in being anything Scarran_, she thought. _ What were you then if you were but a creation of them?_

She was nothing here. She knew nothing of life or rights, or the idea that she herself might be a person in her own right. She had no name, the Emperor had seen no need for one, she was nothing more than state property, a failed experiment.

The minister wanted nothing to do with her. As a 'gift', she'd been an 'insult'.

"Nothing but a disgusting animal", he'd intoned, and promptly gave her to his soldiers.

A brutal attempted mass rape. She felt claws rip and teeth bite, and pain and blood and for her own sake self-respect and something female-primal reared up and screamed in her face.

She stopped thinking and responded from instinct. She fought back. She killed two of her attackers, throats bitten out. The rest would have killed her but the minister had been amused by her panting and barred-teeth defiance.

So he sold her to the Lost Fortune Arena.

To a Charrid taskmaster called Grov Magrov…

… another door, another slur, another cast into another body of herself**…**

**…she'd make them wish they'd killed her.**

The discarded True went with her instincts. She was an animal? Very well. For the next two cycles, she'd _been_ more vicious thing than sentient being.

Hate, violence and primal being. She would live to pile their corpses high for her pain.

She killed for Magrov and he hated her as his entire species hated Scarrans and learned early never to attempt to touch her – she would not be broken by rape or abuse, as a shattered arm taught him.

They howled as she was dumped in her first pit and howled louder when she literally smeared her Sebacean opponent against its walls. Soon they knew to bet on her. They went home with fortunes and she cleaned and patched her wounds and was loosed to killed again.

It was an existence that consisted of pit-to-pit, death-to-death.

Magrov got rich, and the most powerful stable ran Lost Fortune, so he ran Lost Fortune - and she got hard training from the few that had kept some semblance of self-worth, a cold spider patience and occasionally something decent to eat, somewhere warm to sleep.

She was given breeding partners, but she sent back only corpses.

Fear grew around her, but she never noticed. They called her a hundred names, but Magrov called her merely his 'fist'.

She locked herself into hoops of steel and sought death and never died, only sowed it**…**

**…it was in her twenty-first cycle** that Uther Keest arrived to the arenas.

A ex-_Peacekeeper_ admiral, long past his prime, grizzled, scarred and utterly ruthless.

He came with a brass-armored Scarran, his property, another cast-off, personal monster, fifty kill streak - undefeated. Magrov had the reputation she'd bought him with blood.

Keest wanted Lost Fortune. He offered a wager. Magrov's best three against his Monster. The victor named his prize.

Magrov - the fool - agreed, and she became Keest's.

Keest gave Magrov his life and let him keep the remainder of his stable. She and Keest's Monster killed all comers, and he had Lost Fortune.

She didn't care. Not until he told her, _"Win the next bout, and I'll give you Magrov."_ Then he pitted her against three fully-armed Tavleks, three Charrids and a Sheyang.

The crowd was delighted in how long it took Magrov to die. She understood hate by now, all its nuances, its shadings, all it could invoke in her.

She hated Keest too, as she hated everything that lived free, but he just nodded when she told him this. He merely told her to win the next bout. She did, and the next ninety-five, and her fame grew and she learned and listened**...**

**…"What are you?"** He'd asked her, but not until she'd begun to trust him. A feat he accomplished simply by never lying to her.

_"Nothing,"_ she'd been taught to say, the gladiator identity. _"I kill. You reap."_

Keest simply stared at her with his dark eyes, and then called her an animal.

_An animal! _

In the face of her anger, he provoked her further. When she was enraged, he goaded her: _"Come. Defeat _me _and I'll give you your freedom."_

He even waved the official release under her nose.

She shrieked. She attacked.

He defeated her. With _ease_. Old man that he was, he defeated her handily. The Fist of The Arena, and _the old man beat her_.

_"No discipline. No direction, no self-possession. You kill other animals and think yourself a person. Without these, you will always be an animal." _ He left her moaning on the floor in her quarters and told her to think of a better answer when next he asked.

_"If you _weren't_ an animal, you would have won."_ He said, and she hated him more, but she listened**…**

**…it was only later** that she realized that her life had changed the day Magrov had died at her hands. Between bouts – which changed from day-to-day to one every two weekens (_which felt an eternity in-between and made him even more money_), he slowly made her over. He was not cruel, but he did not condone failure. He was pointedly direct and brutally honest, even harsh, and slowly she learned to respect him.

Eventually, she allowed him to offer her his Monster. He knew which of the two was the fiercest. The Monster was not gentle either, but he possessed some finesse, and he knew better than to rush her.

If the Monster had fertilized her, she never knew. Keest took it from her while she slept. Somewhere deep down inside herself, she felt an odd, aching disquiet at that thought.

For two more cycles, he taught her, because she wanted to learn, was determined to be no animal, never to be called one again - taught her discipline and patience and pride, the killing arts; fostered her love of machines, of intricacy, of form and function and precision and balance.

She didn't know when she stopped hating him.

She didn't know when she began to call him 'father'.

She didn't understand the smile on his face when she did.

She wouldn't understand her grief at his death until later.

_"A real warrior must create as well as destroy_", Keest told her, "_or they are nothing but killers._"

He gave her gifts, took her to battle masters who taught her serenity. Stillness in herself. Self-possession and a broader vision of her universe. She soaked it in.

His last gift had been a name.

He called her "Chak'sa Nev'reel Hadreeth Edare'al Bavmorda".

_"What does it mean?"_ she'd asked Keest's monster, her one-time lover, whose name she'd known and forgotten, he long-dead now, at her hands, for eventually the Arenas ate all who dwelt within.

Well, perhaps not all.

"_It is a line of poetry from an ancient, forbidden, near-forgotten book. Father's book."_ He'd told her. "_'A razored Beauty Thou Art, Worthy of Thyself.'"_

Chak'sa was proud of that name over all the others, and it was a name both known and feared. Only Haxer knew her full name, though and he had only known it because of her trust and his propensity for languages.

"_It suits you, because it's true"_

**… Haxer's voice?** In Avrek-Vatall? _It couldn't be…!_ She turned, saw him in distress, bleeding, hurt and she rushed to help him, heard him shout, _"No!"…_

… it was to her very great surprise that he quite ably knocked her unconscious, just a moment later.

* * *

><p><strong>THE OBJECT WAS BARELY FOUR METERS TALL.<strong>

High above the blasted town below, it slowed, pivoted on its axis, bounced lightly in the air and came to a stop, scanned the angry mass of storm cloud behind it.

It was nearly invisible, almost as black as the sky around it. This device was 'sensor-invisible', made of composite inert materials, containing a small, passive gravimetric power source, an onboard computer that was extremely sophisticated. It had not been created by Peacekeepers, but like much of the more sophisticated technology at their command, simply appropriated, and turned to their use. The pod had carried four Drones - one now destroyed - which were autonomous, somewhat intelligent machines, as far as that went – designed to search, acquire and return – and they were loaded with weapons and deterrents designed to prevent interference with their mission. If they had virtues, they had but one: single-minded perseverance. Nothing but their complete destruction would stop them from fulfilling the commands in their drives. They had no sense of self other than a directive to maintain their own functioning to complete their tasks. They had no ethical subroutines, nor inhibitors.

Little would be permitted to stop them.

That was not to say that they would be indiscriminate. They had enough programmed sense to know that the less attention drawn to them the better, but that if discretion could not be maintained, then they would do what they had to – regardless of opposition or exposure to the general planetary populace. It did not judge, it executed.

They had already locked on to the obvious data trace – Sebacean DNA.

About a hundred metras above the site, the pod activated its repulsors, slowed and hovered.

For a few moments, there was no sound - then with a hiss, the pod unfolded like a black flower opening, deployed sensor pods, began scanning its surroundings again.

It logged scrub, dust, small creatures in the immediate area. Primitive internal combustion-driven vehicles passed by intermittently a few hundred metras from it.

It began a scan-trace, seeking anything already in its database – anything from the realm it had so recently departed, those things, it had been informed, that should not belong on this particular world.

It detected one major habitation – 39 Decca 9 – built into the side and under a mountain. It also scanned Sebacean DNA, fifty-four hundred metras from its current location. It sensed Leviathan biomechanoid tech. It locked Leviathan tech as a central starting point, then launched the remaining Drones contained within it. They were roughly spherical, each about a metra and a half tall, about a metra around. Each was covered in blisters – weapons pods. At the bottom were their suspensors.

For a few moments, both hung above the pod, exchanging data with it. Then they each took a different vector, for each had different targets. The pod folded itself closed, and then drifted down, scanned a suitable spot and buried itself half into the ground. It would monitor their progress, and it had stasis pods within it for any acquisitions.

It paid little attention to the sights around it, constantly logging terrain specs, atmospheric conditions and limited flora and fauna data only because it was designed to be aware of precisely where it was at all times. There was no scientific curiosity behind the data.

As it scanned isolated residences within its range, it scanned the Humans inside, made particular note of their physiology.

By the time its drones had reached the outskirts of the destroyed habitation, they knew precisely how to kill a Human in the most lethal and expedient way possible.

* * *

><p><strong>THE SMELL OF OZONE WOKE HIM.<strong>

It felt as if he'd been out for quite some time, but he knew it had been less than a half-an-arn. He cracked his eye, his vision wavered, then cleared. Less than three metras from him, a black shape he recognized: a Mark VI _Hammer_-class Acquisition Drone. He risked a glance at Sun, saw her awake and aware, moved his hand slightly.

The damn thing suddenly rotated toward him.

_Shit!_

Both he and the Drone fired at the same time, but he was slightly faster, rolling and drawing "Betty" and punching a hole into one of the drone's suspensor nodes, just as its particle beam sliced neatly through the wall of the house, cutting the chair he'd just vacated neatly in two.

The Drone spun away, listing – and Crichton knew that the damn thing was simply trying to retreat, reroute its sensors and then come back. He lined up his sights and punched two more shots into the suspensor pod on the bottom, dropping it to the pavement. It crashed hard and immediately sent out a shrill signal.

Farther up the street, he heard a crash, and shook his head. _Yeah, right._ These frelling things always traveled in pairs – one a straight-out sensor platform (_still armed, but not as heavily_) and one basically a gun-toting murder machine. The _Seeker_ he'd damaged. Not, apparently, enough to override its automatic repair routines.

It was, he reasoned, time to vacate the area.

He took a step, stopped_. Frell._

Right. _Sun_.

He turned back, saw that she was already up and approaching him, and he knew she'd be on his tail if he moved now – which he promptly did. The _Hammer_ was starting to squeal as it tried to get itself moving. The Seeker moved to assist it.

_Think fast_, he told himself, _you have _seconds_ here._ _Where are we going? Need a vehicle, need to get out of this dampening field…_

He stepped onto the lawn, scanning the street as quickly as he could for an intact car. To his right, the stricken drone on the street. An ominous 'burr' rattled up the street as a large dark shape floated up it, hovered a moment, and then turned toward them. A sharp cone of light illuminated them in a stark white relief.

Crichton didn't hesitate, he ran like a bat-out-of-hell, Aeryn on his heels.

The _Seeker_ drone did not pursue. It proceeded to the stricken _Hammer_ and proceeded to repair it. When it was done, it backed off, waited.

The _Hammer_ linked with the Seeker that followed the targets with its sensors as they made their way through the shattered streets, then both climbed to about a thousand metras above their present location and ran intensive scans on what was left below. No appreciatively-advanced technology registered on sensors, nor tripped cautionary subroutines.

Very little below would withstand its weapons. The Drones had no specific orders as to how to deal with Humans – only general guidelines.

If they received no interference, it would pay no attention to them.

Minimal interference would receive a cursory warning and then repelling with minimum force necessary. It would not kill unless it had to, although it was perfectly capable of judging the circumstance for itself.

Heavy resistance had only _one_ response. The complete removal of that resistance by all means at its disposal.

It expected heavy resistance.

The Drone finished its calculations, unfolded itself completely, preparing for full combat mode. The _Seeker_ went ahead.

They had been designed by the _Iai_, a race that no longer existed. The Peacekeepers had exterminated them before appropriating all of their technology. Its original classification had been "Urban Assault and Pacification", which basically meant that it was designed to be unleashed among rebelling populaces and to crush any and all resistance it encountered.

Weapons bristled on it; defensive shields and reflection plates, infrasonic cannon and blinders, pulse charges and its belt-fed disruptor cannon all locked and loaded. Its explosive ordinance was accounted for and fed into launch tubes. Interior circuitry shields – designed to protect its sensitive innards from any electromagnetic pulse weapons - were brought on line.

The Crichton it wanted was not here, but its databases had a name closely associated with him – Aeryn Sun – and she _was_ below. The logic in its circuits ran like this – secure _her_, and you secured _him_. If it eliminated the Pirate in the process, well, that was not against its programming.

Very well. It had failed on its initial run to do so.

It would not make the same mistake twice.

* * *

><p><strong> IT WAS A HISS-SHRIEK<strong> both knew.

They were dodging between smashed houses, weaving through hulks of vehicles. Every few microts, the _Seeker_ would fire its beam disruptor, punching a metra-wide hole damn-near at their feet. Crichton skidded to halt in the shadow of a broken wall, tried to catch his breath, trying hard to listen for the burr-slide sound of it moving.

"Frelling thing is herding us," Aeryn panted lightly beside him. He nodded.

"Hammer's trying to move around." He spat. "They're changing tactics."

"Probably an Acquisition Protocol." Her grey eyes looked him over in the early morning light. "Us?"

A shake of his head.

"You."

Crichton heard a faint crackle on his comm, smiled slightly.

"We're nearing the edge of the dampening field, from the sounds of it." She nodded, having heard it before he had. There was a sudden snap-crack, and the ground exploded at their feet, flinging them in opposite directions.

Aeryn rolled with it, superior reflexes adding to her momentum, allowing her to flip over, rise and come up firing…

…her first pulse round hit Crichton in the chest, just above his sternum, eliciting a grunt of surprise. The second round hit him squarely in the breastbone, smashing through the bone and exploding his heart. His brain registered only his faint surprise and amusement that it was she doing the honors, and wondered at the dismayed look on her face as she did it. His last thought was, _why care? You got what you wanted - _

He was dead before the Drone hit his body with a shock-pulse that blasted his corpse through the wall and out of sight. He didn't hear her horrified scream or see the Hammer fire the needle that incapacitated her for the Seeker.

* * *

><p><strong>"THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE."<strong> She insisted, watching 'Thadon' walk calmly toward her.

"You question everything," he told her, smiling. "Can't you ever accept anything on faith?"

She frowned at him. _Faith?_ What use was fantasy to such as her? She dealt in the cold reality of existence – and extinction.

"Stop!" She ordered, blade flashing. Thadon sighed, and just out of arm's reach, he stopped. "This cannot be. You are not here, and neither am I."

"Come, Shivi'na. You want this. You want me. You know it. Accept this truth."

"I accept nothing I cannot confirm as reality." She backed away a step. Around them the Des'r Prefecture went on with its business.

"How we feel is reality." He told her, reaching a hand toward her.

"How _do_ we feel?" Shiv sneered at him, irritated by his surety. She batted his hand away. " I am no brood mare – not for the Fabricators, not for you, _not for anyone_!"

Thadon's eyes narrowed. The extended hand pointed an accusatory finger.

"You are beholden to your creators!"

"I forge my own oaths!" She countered. He grabbed her arms in one swift move.

"Give yourself to me!" He shouted. Shiv sheathed her blade in his chest. He gasped, fell away from her. She backed away as he slumped, bleeding, a smile on his face.

"I do not play these games," she spat. She turned, to see a Torvan male standing watching her. A lightning slash, and he fell. She killed another and another, and another. She whirled to find another, a fast strike stab, but this one did not fall. He cocked his head at her, opened his eyes to reveal deep black orbs.

"Very well," he told her in a voice flat and void of feeling. He lifted a hand, and Shiv froze. "You are an interesting construct," He told her. "A miscalculation." He seemed to ponder for a few moments. "Very well. There are others."

He closed his hand into a fist, and she knew no more.

* * *

><p><strong>HER LIPS WERE WARM<strong>, and she was vibrant and welcome-heavy in his arms, feminine curves that heated his blood and made forget everything but that moment.

"We have time," she murmured into his mouth, lips still on his. "Half-an-arn until I'm on duty."

Ander inhaled her scent deeply, felt it down to his marrow, suffusing his brain with that heady heat and groaning, demanding need for her.

"You know I'll be up all through the night cycle," he told her, smiling against her lips. "There's a lot of work to do on that shunt – especially if you want to try to actually penetrate a vortex."

"Scorpius calls them 'wormholes'." She sniggered. "'Wormholes'. How colourful."

He pulled his lips away, not far.

"Where the frell did he get that?" Ander snickered. "He could have easily called them boreholes, or apertures. I like that word though – apertures. It's a good word – almost _erotic_." He grinned down at her. She punched him lightly on the chest.

"I am _not_ going to murmur 'apertures' at you while we recreate."

He pulled her as close as he could, reveling in the realness of her. In a polished panel behind her… a face, a female face - _what the frell was that – someone watching them?_

He looked behind them, saw no one, shook his head. He must be tired, overworked. That he most definitely was, no dren.

A chime sounded behind them and Elisaha sighed.

"Yes?" She called. She did not let go of him, however.

"_"We are readying the power recyclers for the shunt," _a tech told her over the comms. _"Five hundred fifty microts to activation."_

"Understood." She told him, closing the channel. She looked up at her mate. "So… you have four hundred microts, Hax."

"Elisaha," he said, smiling. "I have four hundred and ninety… _what did you just call me?"_

She looked at him quizzically.

"What I always call you."

"No, you didn't." He paused, looked around. Yes. The Deep Carrier. The _Roshannan._

No. This wasn't right.

The _Roshannan_. Elisaha.

They were both _dead_.

Long dead.

He could_ not_ be standing on these steel decks, not here, not in his home. She was not in his arms. He shoved her away with a snarl, stepped back, the puzzled hurt look on her face thumping in his chest.

"I may be full of dren," he told the air. "But I don't lie to myself!" He started backing away from her, she looking concerned-irritated. He jabbed a finger at her. "I watched you _die_! I _saw_ you die!" He leapt back from her as she tried to reach out.

"I saw this whole place crushed by a frelling wormhole!" he shouted. _"You won't break me with this!"_

Haxer fell to his knees, distraught, angry, and when she came to him, put her arms around him to try and comfort him, he couldn't resist her.

"Ander… you're here, now, with me, where you belong." She smoothed his sandy hair. "We're all right. You're all right."

_"Frell you, Scorpius!" _he suddenly roared, shoving her even more violently away. "_You get nothing! Do you hear me!"_

"Ander – what are you..?" He'd never seen her looking so frightened and bewildered in all the time he'd known her. It would be so easy – too easy – to accept it all as real and throw himself into the illusion, relieve those times, times of research and exploration and discovery, and Elisaha there, and her smile, that cool loveliness of her, those nights of contentment when her presence made the darkness velvet and sweet.

He knew who and what he was then. Haxer clutched his head at the massive wave of pain that slammed suddenly through it, washing everything in an incandescent red, eliciting a howl of pain and rage from him.

Someone was shouting at him, trying to pull him upright, he smelled smoke and heard screams.

Elisaha had shoved a box of data crystals into his hands, and push-pulled him to an escape pod, and a blast had separated them and she'd hit the control and launched him into his never-ending nightmare while flames grabbed her in a red claw and blasted him into a lonely benighted existence of spiraling madness, sparking guilt and red endless rage.

The flames chased him, then, in her shape, screaming his name, accusing, chasing him until she backed him to a wall.

He would not relent. He understood it now, if not in particulars, by instinct. Never again would he succumb!

_"No!"_

Unexpectedly, Haxer lashed out, and his fist connected with something very solid, that let out a surprised gasp and fell – in her true form, at his feet.

He wasn't lost any longer.

He knew where he belonged, and he knew she needed him.

With a strength that would have surprised her, Haxer picked her up, carried her to her room, and laid her gently on the bed, kissed the welt he had made in apology.

Then he closed her door, and stepped out to see just what it was that had dared invade his mind.


	4. Chapter 3

**Note:** _Yup, I've changed it, sorry. Stoopid real life in the way! Apologies - again - to those folks following my little serial here. Some things are unavoidable. You get to a certain point in a story and realize that your original direction was either silly/unworkable/nonsensical. I am back on track, I believe, and back to working on it regularly, so there shouldn't be another prolonged wait like the last one. Thanks everyone for sticking with it. :)_

* * *

><p><strong>THE SILENCE WAS PROFOUND<strong>. He contemplated it for a few moments.

_Enough,_ he decided, _was enough. Dead, not dead – this is getting tedious._

He gave the silence another few moments to sort itself out, when it was sliced by the sharp, horrified _"No!"_ of a voice he knew.

_Okay, _ he nodded to himself. _That's in keeping with the general milieu._

He shoved the detritus of a smashed house from him, shook his head and managed to assess what was going on around him. Yeah. Killed. It felt like "killed", wasn't. Annoying.

Somebody was playing games with the wrong boy.

Aeryn had the Hammer drone listing, keeping up a steady fire as she edged closer to his position. He found his Forge rifle, flipped open its targeting sight. _Nice. _She'd managed a small hole in the side of thing. He took a deep breath, exhaled, and punched a single shot neatly into that hole. A moment later, the Hammer started to spin, rise. It rose about a hundred meters, spinning itself into a high-pitched whine. It then flipped, halted for one microt in the air and then drove itself into the asphalt. It pulsed once from its crater, and he dove for the furious woman still shooting at it. Crichton tackled her just as the drone exploded in a searing ball of blue, rolling her out of the way, shielding her with his armored longcoat. Even so, he could feel the electric sting of the energy through his coat.

"You're alive!" was the first thing she said, over the _pik-pak_ of stones and debris raining on them.

"It's a habit I got into a while back," he told her dryly, ducking as a large brick bounced off the remaining wall beside them. He could see emotions roll through those smoky greys, couldn't pin down any one single feeling.

"I thought I…" she was far too conscious of the hard body on her own, she realized, still trying to decide if the way she had been feeling lately was something she should be worried about – or if she even cared at all. They were _not_ the same, not anymore. "…killed you."

"I'm sure you'll have opportunities in the future." He told her, grimacing as a chunk of asphalt bounced off his back. Aeryn knew she should tell him to get off, but the smell was _John Crichton_, the feel was _John Crichton_, the Crichton she remembered from the days on Talyn. It felt petty, and she knew she should probably feel ashamed for it, but the John she knew, the one she'd been here with for the last three cycles – he 'felt' like when she'd first knew him, petulant, self-centered, peevish and infuriating.

On Talyn, they had loved on the edge, fiercely, hungrily, never knowing what could happen or if that day might be their last.

She hated herself for feeling it. Knew she shouldn't. Couldn't help it. She was more than her drives, however.

"We are being manipulated," she told him, as he stood up. He did not reach down to help her out. If he yet felt anything for her, he hid it extremely well. Realistically she knew to expect him to still care after all this time was foolish, but if he _were_ John Crichton…

That was irritating, too, and she filed it away for future perusal.

"Yeah. Something's dropping fantasy down among the reality."

His neural implant kept foiling the attempt, he was sure. Enough was getting through to disorient him momentarily, and then the implant 'reset' his reality. He was going to have to find that Medican and give him a damn bonus.

Aeryn dusted herself off. Crichton was toeing the remains of the Hammer, the Forge in his hands. There was still a Seeker out there.

"Do we know the difference between the two?" she asked, suddenly wondering if what she'd been feeling around him might be part of the manipulation.

"The Hammer's real." He sniffed. "So are the crushed towns."

"I shot you – fake." She joined him, pistol in hand. He mock-patted himself, nodded.

He tapped one of his comms. "Distortion field is real, too. That may be the extent of it – for the moment." He pondered, scanning the thicket of remaining trees behind them. He looked around, in the distance, an abandoned apartment building, at least fifteen floors. He nodded to himself once, started for it. Aeryn fell in beside him.

"We're going…?"

He nodded at the apartments.

"…. To see if we can get above that field."

They were halfway to the building when the thicket behind them sounded with the splinter of trees – the Seeker broke out, scanned the area, and made for them. They took off running. An arc of light scored the ground at their heels.

"I've done more frelling running in the last two days," he puffed lightly beside her, "than I have for the last damn cycle." They skidded around the corner of the building, and through a back door. Darkened stairs led upward. They paused for a moment, listening for the burr of the Seeker's suspensors. Not far behind. Crichton led the way up the stairs with another huff of breath.

"I'm outta shape, dammit." He growled, taking the stairs two at a time.

Aeryn didn't even bother pretending to herself she wasn't looking at his leather-clad posterior as it went up the stairs.

"The frell", she muttered, following him.

Below them, a sonic whine followed them up the stairwell, and there was a short silence, followed by a noise as if steel bearings were ricocheting off the walls. Aeryn knew what they were, jumped the last two steps and grabbed him, to his faint surprise.

She tugged him to her, shoved him against the wall, in the corner, and told him,

"Whatever you do – _don't move_. That frelling Seeker has blind-fired a half-dozen remotes. They key in on movement and Sebaceanoid shapes."

"We still look like things," Crichton told her, and she pulled apart his longcoat, stepped into it, stood very close. She could feel the heat of him through his leathers underneath. He might start wondering if she was doing it deliberately, smiled to herself. He'd started it!

"Like this, we don't. Stay absolutely still." There was a low hum as the remotes floated up the stairwell. They were fist-sized, pewter-coloured, with small projections here and there. One floated less than half a metra from them, stopped.

"They can't hear us," she whispered through barely-moving lips, "but they'll lock onto even our lips moving. If it comes any closer, hold your breath."

It didn't, moving off. One hummed loudly, suddenly darted down a hallway. There was a squeak and the remote smashed into the creature, detonating loudly.

"Damn," Crichton muttered. "Even something rat-sized, huh?" He glanced around the hallway, saw most of the apartment doors were open – probably looters after the hurried evacuation. "We can't stay here all day." He watched the remotes move in and out of apartments. "They're not rechecking where they've been. That'll work." He waited until they'd all vanished into apartments. He took a step, froze. They all came out simultaneously, floated toward the stairwell at the other end of the hall.

"Crap. Was hoping to work my way toward that…"

Aeryn was looking over his shoulder.

"One grenade, and we wouldn't have this problem. They're all grouped – we could…"

Crichton reached into an inside pocket, held up a small handful of strips of… something. They looked like metal Band-Aids. He crunched them into a ball. She looked at him quizzically.

"Subvertor-grade Det-strips. I call 'em lock picks," he smirked. "How's your eye?"

She smiled slightly, drew her pistol.

"As good as ever." She stepped away from him, carefully.

"On three."

She nodded, crouched. He counted, and on "two", stepped into the hall, casually tossed the small ball at the remotes. "Three."

Aeryn hit it with a single shot just as it dropped into their midst. The detonation took out the remotes, and the end of the hallway, smashing the stairwell door to splinters. She looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. He shrugged.

"They're only supposed to be used one at a time." He was already moving past her. Moments later they were on the roof. There was a sharp chirp on his comm as they stepped out into the air.

"Finally." He hit it. "Anyone home?"

"_Crichton?_" Chiana. _"Hey – you in one piece?"_

"Reasonably so – you guys all right?"

"_Lo-Lhaa's down in a large paved area in front of something called 'Walled Mart."_ She paused a moment. _"Deception Shroud is holding. D'Argo says we'll be in the sky in a hundred microts."_

"Sweet. Lock onto my comm and come get me, would you? I've got a Seeker on my ass."

"_We can do that,"_ D'Argo answered for himself. "_We had a Hunter come after us, too._"

"Let's hope it was the same one I blew away." He stepped to the edge of the roof, looked below. No sign of the Seeker. "Don't need two of those things around."

"_Talyn was tracking two, he said, but he couldn't get anything solid. Lost the other one heading Helva 221."_

West. "Figures. Heading for John, doubtless."

"_Should we…?"_

Crichton shook his head, scratched it.

"At the moment, he's in more danger from Miriya." A Nebari snicker over the comm. Aeryn frowned. She opened her mouth, closed it.

"_We'll be there as soon as we can."_

"Quicker than that, D." He slapped off the comm at D'Argo's affirmative, looked for somewhere with decent cover.

From behind them, there was a sudden snap-crack, and white energy lanced past them, barely missing. Both leapt for the large air conditioning unit a metra from them. Crichton popped up, hit it with a round from his Forge. It rocked, spun, but fired a round of flechettes as it did. They tore through the AC and Crichton grunted as one hit him in the thigh. He yanked it out, damn thing two denches long - more than half of it had gone into his leg - hoped it wasn't drugged or poisoned. He shrugged internally. He'd know soon enough. The damn thing was eating its way through the AC at a rate at which he was not fond. Aeryn leaned around to fire at it and got a flash-burn for her trouble.

"We cannot stay here," she told him, to his short nod. He sprayed a sealant into the wound and was slapping a bandage on the hole in his leg.

"Agreed." He saw another AC unit across the roof. "Stay here." He slung his Forge, pulled both pistols. "I'm gonna draw it off." He pointed to a fire escape to her right. "When I do, hit that, and run like hell. D will be here soon enough."

"You won't make it," she told him. "It'll cut you down before you get halfway."

That one blue eye just fixed her coldly.

"Just do what the frell you're told." Without waiting to see her response, he suddenly bolted for the other AC, as quickly as his injured leg would allow him, a stream of particles, steel and pulse blasts following him. Aeryn stood, and opened up on the Seeker, doing nothing but drawing its attention to herself. The Seeker sent a pulse wave that knocked Crichton over and threw him off the roof, and several cannon turned toward Aeryn, who was now wishing she'd listened.

The barrels glowed, and at the other end of the building, _Lo'Lhaa_ suddenly rose, and blew the Seeker into its component atoms. Sitting on top of the Eradicator was a grim-faced Crichton.

_Lo'Lhaa_ landed on the roof as Aeryn brushed herself off and walked toward them. Crichton slid down to the ground as _Lo-Lhaa's_ hatch opened. Chiana stepped out into a quick hug and smooch on the forehead.

"Well," Chiana chimed, "you can't fault her mivonks."

"Never," D'Argo agreed. Crichton climbed aboard, slapped D'Argo on the shoulder. "Never does what she's told, either." He quirked his lips. It might have been a smile. He may have felt very little for her, but he could still admire her determination. He looked at his 'brother'.

"Nice shot, by the way. Anything on that damn Marauder, Heavy D? We can't let that bitch kill another town."

D'Argo shook his tentacle head as he lifted _Lo'Lhaa_ off.

"Nothing definite." He ignored the look Aeryn gave him, as he added, "According to the her Crichton, Miriya says she managed to adapt a tracking module from _Moya's_ pod to scan for it. It's not a solid track, though. He says it's in a place called Wyoming."

"First things first, D." He glanced back at Aeryn, who simply looked at him. D'Argo sent him a question with his eyes, which received a small nod in return. "Shimmery trails do not a hunt make, D."

"Right."

"I've never been to Wyoming," Aeryn said to no one in particular.

_Lo'Lhaa _roared into the sky.

* * *

><p><strong>GROOM LAKE IN NEVADA.<strong>

To the world at large, it was the secret government base that was secret only inasmuch they refused to disclose what went on there, although that really wasn't all that much of a secret, either.

Down a short way, built into the side of the hills that surrounded Groom Lake and beneath it was an area called "S3E". The public, as a rule, were too busy being distracted by Area 51 to really realize this place existed.

That was entirely by design.

"S3E" _was_ where the aliens and their technologies were kept. Three years previously, it had been the home - for about four months - of John Crichton and Aeryn Sun. Neither had enjoyed it all that much, but they had been compensated for it since.

Today, it was not an ex-Peacekeeper Sebacean nor a once-lost-in-space Human that concerned the overseers and technicians of S3E. Mere hours earlier, an alert had sounded, and perimeter guards had discovered the body of one of the aliens that had accompanied the latest batch to come through the wormhole, alive, though apparently injured and unconscious.

Unfortunately, her presence had been reported to General Williams first, and he'd ordered it kept quiet – 'for now", evoking the Crichton Protocols, and national security.

The being certainly _looked_ female, and the initial medical examiner's finding was that the being was configured much like a Human female with some obvious and naturally not-so-obvious physiological differences.

She was dressed in a one-piece skintight black leather bodysuit, with arm braces, fingerless gloves and strong boots, and a curious silver-metal 'cuirass', which appeared to be made up of several intricate interlocking pieces, the exact number of which could not be determined. After several abortive attempts at its removal, it was decided that it was of no consequence and left on. It remained problematic only in that it curtailed any 'hands-on' physical examination. The subject was then placed onto a rather sophisticated diagnostic station/bed, instead. It was probably the single most sophisticated piece of medical technology on the planet, and it was one of a kind.

Major Darren Vanderstone, CMO of S3E sat comfortably at his monitor and watched the examination proceed. Captain Janine Hamner, his lead xenobiologist and the woman to be the first to examine Officer Sun on her arrival detailed each phase for their video record.

"Subject is 1.73 metres in height, weight, seventy kilos. Internal organ configuration is similar to Human norms; there appears to be some moderate shape and size differences, but most look readily identifiable." She upped the scan resolution. "Heart is very strong at 66 beats a minute. Lungs well-formed and healthy – " she paused, looked further. "Lungs seem to have some kind of compartmentalization feature. Will bear out further investigation. Hormonal and genetic scan indicates that subject is indeed female as appearance would indicate, reproductive organs appear similar to Human norms. However, subject does not have an identifiable uterus." She scanned further, shook her head.

"Born without one, perhaps." Vanderstone said, electronic stylus poised over his data pad.

"Possible." Hamner continued on. "Subject's musculature is rather dense, yet fibrous, arranged in a lateral tightly-wound _spiral_ configuration. Bone structure is birdlike, tendons and ligaments are in an unusual configuration – striations also appear spiral, which would suggest amazing tensile strength and remarkable flexibility. It is a safe assumption to make that this subject is undoubtedly more physically powerful than she would at first appear." She shook her head, amazed. "Skin has no melanin. It does, however, contain a cellular chemical composition the scanner cannot identify. It is blemish-free and has no pores. It is rather cool to the touch."

"What was that?" Vanderstone looked up from his writing.

"No pores." She mused. "Amend that - no pores anywhere except her hands and feet. Interesting. Very few pores means barely any sweat, and barely any sweat means barely any scent." She ran more scans. "The pigment in the skin apparently reflects light – we see it as rather pale - white, although it isn't actually white. The cells are remarkably uniform, hence the smoothness of the skin. One orderly called it 'frictionless', not very accurate, but not far off. The computer speculates that the chemical compound contained in her skin cells may be somewhat similar to that found in cephalopods, only instead of changing color, they reflect various wavelengths of light." She frowned, and Vanderstone bent forward to listen.

"Have a context as to why, perhaps?" Hamner thought, after a few moments, she said,

"It would suggest _stealth_ capabilities – possibly _engineered_ stealth abilities. It's a little _too_ good to be a natural occurrence. She could conceivably reflect infrared, ultraviolet – all across the spectrum, make herself invisible to scanning devices, cameras. Rather adeptly solves any attempts at tracking her electronically – at least via direct scan."

Vanderstone nodded, made a note, indicated that she was to continue. She pried open an eyelid. "Eye colour – umber, orange." She shone her small flashlight into those orange eyes, and the pupils almost immediately dilated into pinpricks, then immediately opened again when the light was removed. "Pupils are extremely sensitive to light." A moment and she redirected the scan. "Scan says her rods and cones are highly densely packed."

She hit a series of commands, waiting until the computer ran through its routine.

"_Amazing. _She must have phenomenal vision."

Vanderstone shook his head at the numbers. Astonishing. Judging from those, she should be able to see a lit candle almost twenty kilometres away.

Hamner shook her head, stepped back and looked her over. This… woman was in superb physical shape, and reminded her of Officer Sun, an exotic beauty with the body of a warrior that lost nothing in feminine allure. The difference, she suspected, was that _this_ one may have been _engineered_ – and she still wasn't completely convinced that Officer Sun _hadn't_.

The monitor over their heads snapped on, and the Director of Groom Lake Special Projects – Jocasta Akanke - looked down at them. She looked like she'd been awake for quite some time. She was also operating on a level diametrically opposed to 'happy'.

"_There had better be a damn good explanation for this, Doctor."_

Damn. Rumbled.

"She was found unconscious on the perimeter, Director. General Williams ordered that she be brought here and cared for – as best we could, at any rate."

Akanke looked at the new alien.

"_Of course he did." _Her voice said she didn't believe that for a moment. _What had Aeryn called her – assassin? And a damned deadly one at that._

"_Isolate her. Now. I want her in the Tank_." Akanke looked away, appeared to be speaking to someone they couldn't see.

"Director, I believe that this alien could be of immense benefit to…" Akanke interrupted him.

"_If she comes to while you're prodding her, she'll kill everyone in that room. And everyone between there and her way out. Get her to the Tank."_

Vanderstone nodded, called up security and orderlies. The alien was quickly strapped to the table and whisked off to the heavy-duty isolation room known as the _Tank_. Sun and Crichton had spent some time in it themselves, although for different reasons.

"_She's not to be restrained_." Again, Akanke talked with someone he couldn't hear.

"Of course not…" Vanderstone asked, becoming rather more apprehensive. "She's really _that _dangerous?"

"_I have no idea. Unfortunately, I don't have the luxury of making an informed choice. All reports are that she is not to be trifled with – understand?"_

"Very well. We'll do what you say, of course."

"_Was she injured in any way_?"

"No… I don't believe so." Hamner shook her head to confirm. "Nothing past the odd minor cut and scrape." Akanke nodded.

"_Good. Her disposition is being organized as we speak. Monitor her, but do not otherwise interfere with her. I want to make this clear, Doctor – no one but I or one of my representatives. That is an Executive Order. No one. I don't care what kind of badge they flash at you, or what Williams says or invokes. At the moment, even the President would not be allowed in that room."_

"Yes, very well. I understand." Akanke nodded, and the screen went blank.

"Damn. Scary Politics Time." Hamner said at his elbow. He didn't hear her come up.

"How so?"

Hamner shook her head.

"Williams wants to exploit the aliens if he can, naturally. He's been dying for an opportunity like this. Akanke is just trying to keep us all from drowning in the shit-rain that'll happen if her crewmates find out we've got her." He frowned at her vulgarism. "Exploitation is the name of the game, here. Williams and his lot."

"Exploit – for the good of the Human race, Doctor." He said with an air of one who had heard this idea a few too many times. His justification was always that, and it superseded all other concerns. If he received an order at noon that said he had to personally kill and dissect that alien to save his kind and his planet, she would dead by 12:05. Hamner, on the other hand, liked grey areas.

"That's not what I mean. This is the first _real_ extraterrestrial contact we've had since Officer Sun, but the possibility has always been that more might follow." Hamner nodded after the departing alien. "_She_ may be the vanguard."

"Vanguard? Of what? An invasion force? These 'Peacekeepers' Officer Sun mentioned? They're already here."

Hamner thought about it, turned to leave.

"Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it's something _worse_."

* * *

><p><strong>AKANKE RUBBED AT THE HEADACHE EATING AWAY AT HER.<strong>

Damn Williams. The last thing she needed was the new aliens doing something violent to free one of their own. As they were perfectly capable. A wave of brief despair washed over her, and she reached for her medication – strong black coffee - gulped a lukewarm mug down, grimaced, finished it anyway, started to wish she'd smoked.

Endless. It was bad enough _before _aliens had arrived – at any time – having to juggle with politics and nonsense on the General Williams' scale of nonsense, and she was just completely and utterly _tired._

Jocasta put her head down in the darkness of her office and allowed herself the luxury of tears, frustration and anger and the feeling of an onrush of fate gushing out in a cathartic release.

"_You are our last line of defence, Jocasta,"_ "Red" Ed Franklin, her Black Ops instructor had told her, so very long ago. "_When everyone around you panics, and they_ will - when _they all go batshit crazy_ – you _will be the one to save the world. That's _why_ you_ _were chosen."_

.Jocasta Akanke had been trained, taught and then hand-picked to do what it took, no matter what any current government policy said, where she stood and what she dealt with superseded such petty concerns; to save the world - and dammit, that was exactly what she was going to do. The tears lasted only a few moments, and disgusted with herself, she splashed water on her face, took a deep breath and nodded to herself.

She rolled her shoulders, straightened her blouse, cleared her throat and reached for her intercom.

"Get me Williams," she ordered in a voice that brooked no dissent, had no trace of tiredness nor tears about it. "_Now_."

Save the world.

She could do that.

* * *

><p><strong>NERADA LAMM WAS NOT BY NATURE CRUEL.<strong>

Apathy had been so thoroughly bred into so many Peacekeepers that sheer indifference could easily be mistaken for it. She held no particular dislike for any of the humans below, just as she had none for any other alien species she'd ever encountered - nor did she take any distinct relish in killing them. In many ways the hunter-seeker drones she had sent out cared more about whom they killed to achieve their mission.

Crichton, she reasoned, must be far more important on this planet than Scorpius had predicted, and far more callous than she, to continue to let so many die in his stead.

But, as stated, she was not cruel. She had been trained, that in a crisis, a good soldier did all she could to go straight to the heart of the matter and thus end a conflict quickly and efficiently. A feint here and there, but with eyes always on the ultimate goal.

The mountain before her contained an impressive base. It was a hive of much activity. Deep scans had shown a few rather important things. One, the base was a comms hub. Two, it was well-fortified, but nothing their weapons could crack. Three, it contained three subcutaneous Peacekeeper transponders. Undoubtedly what remained of the troopers she'd dispatched to secure Crichton in the first place.

Three on the inside. She had Harlock ping them, to let them know she was near. Harlock had taken double duty after Sawer had proven a fraud. Her networks were becoming shoddy, for his credentials had been impeccable. No matter. She didn't bother with testing the rest of her crew. She didn't care about any of them and unless they attacked her outright, she didn't care about any possible betrayal. If necessary, she could operate this Marauder alone.

"Stand by with the cutters," she ordered the team. That large round metal door would not withstand them for long.

Her remaining drones would take care of the others.

To take the Crichton below, the one stolen from her by the Disruptor – who was also in residence, something she considered a bonus, as the Peacekeeper Influence would not miss another Disruptor – would be easy.

She hoped they'd put up some resistance.

* * *

><p><strong>DEEP IN THE COMPUTER CORE<strong> in Cheyenne Mountain, an intruder carefully took several long moments to assimilate and learn the basic software, and once satisfied it knew it well enough, it wove deftly through firewalls and probe defences, orders were given for switches to be switched and relays flipped open. A petabyte of information was scanned, sluiced and copied. Several new programs were inserted, tested, ran. Some were implanted and designed to wait, some ran immediately. It waited and watched a full minute and again satisfied all was proceeding as ordered, the intruder simply ...vanished.

* * *

><p><strong>SHIV AWOKE TO THE SMELL OF ANTISEPTIC AIR AND THE FEEL OF COOL AIR AROUND HER.<strong>

Unlike almost anyone else, she did not open her eyes and sit up right away. She did not awaken groggy or disoriented. She lay perfectly still and she smelled, listened, and she felt. She had a dull ache throughout her body, as if she'd been encompassed in something that had squeezed rather hard, then flung her from a height. Shiv assessed her surroundings.

Slight vibration through the floor – regular pulses. Very likely an atmosphere scrubber or pump of some kind. The texture of the bed – for it was a bed she was on – was smooth and cool. She smelled metal, lubricant, leather, what was possibly disinfectant, the faint smell of ozone. She could hear the cycling of machinery, the hum of electrical relays and motors and the faint sound of footsteps. Heavy-shod feet. Boots. Heavy boots. The air was ionized, particulate-free.

Clean room.

Very well. Prison, examination annex or laboratory. Despite the low all-over body ache, all limbs registered as functional. She could feel the reassuring weight of her blades on her chest, wondered at the sheer …_stupidity_ that someone would seek to imprison a Thantados yet leave her _armed_. Even if she were in what she had already assessed as a hermetically-sealed and atmosphere-controlled room, it made no difference.

One opening, even for a microt, and Shiv would be free.

No Thantados had ever been imprisoned for long. Nor any jailer of a Thantados live to boast of it.

She lay there a few moments longer, and when she was satisfied that she was alone in this space, she opened her eyes, and in one fluid motion sat up. She confirmed her suspicions. The room she was in was spacious, mostly empty, save for a basin, what appeared to be a reclamation facility and this bed. Thick sheets of glass or plastic looked out on a wide room with computers and technicians. They stared and murmured and electronics crackled and mechanical equipment was spurred to life. The room beyond was shrouded in darkness, but Shiv could see them as clearly as if they were under open daylight.

Humans. Across from her, a Peacekeeper, and he stared at her, then pointed and made a throat-cutting motion. His companion swatted him back, looked at her and shook her head with a slight smile, as if to say, "We're all prisoners, now."

Up from them, the Stykera, Stark. Shiv nodded once at him, and it was returned.

Along the back wall, windowless, ran a wide, cushioned ledge. With deliberate grace, and a show of contempt for her captors, Shiv stepped from the bed, turned her back and walked calmly to the ledge, sat, drew her legs up and crossed her arms comfortably on her lap, just as alarms began to sound throughout the complex.

She went still, went immobile and calmly turned her fire-eyes on the Peacekeepers. They looked uneasy when Shiv smiled at them, and only grew when she left the smile where it was.

* * *

><p><strong>MIRIYA HAD BEEN UP TO HER ELBOWS <strong>in Leviathan pod innards when Lamm struck. Klaxons had suddenly gone off, and a mechanical voice advised them that the base was under attack and all emergency doors were closing, and that they should remain calm and at their stations. She heard John outside the pod cursing at someone over the intercom.

In her head, Iriya chuckled, and Miriya just rolled her eyes. That _any_one was surprised at this turn of events was the only thing that had surprised either. She exited the pod, calmly wiping conducting fluid from her hands as a far door on the underground hanger boomed shut, sealing them in.

"Open the doors," John was saying into the comm system when Miriya reached him. "I need to…"

"_Sorry, Sir,"_ the voice on the other end told him. _"I can't do that."_

"Look, under the Protocols, I'm in charge of this entire…"

"_Excuse me, Sir,"_ the voice rejoined. _"That's only unless there is an attack. This base is currently under attack by forces unknown. Under the Crichton Protocols, you are to be kept safe, Sir. An armed escort will be dispatched to escort you to the Vault as soon as possible. Please remain calm."_

The comm cut out and John knew it was futile to try and get it back. He punched the wall with a frustrated "shit!", then turned to her.

"Do you have a comm or something? I need to get outta here."

Miriya shrugged. She did, but it would be useless, and told him so. Miriya picked up a tool, examined it, put it in a pocket, selected another.

"Take their advice," she told him. "Stay calm. There's nothing you can do at the moment."

He watched her head to the door.

"What are you doing?"

Miriya shrugged.

"I said there was nothing you could do at the moment. I didn't say there wasn't anything I couldn't, however." He joined her just as she was pulling the cover to the electronic door-lock off. She bent to examine it, scratched her chin.

"I'm impressed, I have to say," she told him, casual. "From the feeds I've seen, you humans have an odd technological conglomeration." She was tracing circuit paths with her eyes. John propped himself against the wall next to her, crossed his arms.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, take this, for example. An electronic lock of some rather surprising sophistication – on a planet where the primary fuel source is a highly inefficient and extremely toxic fossil fuel, and your vehicles all use it – extremely inefficiently, I might add." She reached into the panel, pulled a circuit board out, careful to leave its wiring intact, examined it. "Yet, your spacecraft and satellite systems are surprisingly sophisticated. Your media envelope is very well organized and quite encompassing, even if its content leaves a great deal to be desired." She reached in, pulled another small panel out, examined it, pulled the wires off it, chucked the circuit board over her shoulder, pulled one of her own tools from one of her many pockets, started soldering wires from one to the other.

Crichton had been watching her, opened his mouth to say that that wouldn't open either door when she looked up with a small smile and told him,

"I know. Not going for either door." Further down the wall, a panel sliced open. "When all else fails – maintenance accessway." He nodded, impressed. "Told you I was good." She walked calmly to the accessway. "This accessway only goes to a secondary work bay, but that should be enough." Behind her, he nodded.

"Yeah, I doubt the security for it is as high."

"Precisely." She peered into the tube of pipes and wire bundles. It was lit by a soft light every motra. She made to crawl in when John stopped her.

"Hold on a minute. How the hell _do_ you know where you're going?"

Miriya turned her slinky smile on him.

"Please. Your computer networks might be sophisticated, but that's by _human_ standards. You know, you're the only race I've encountered that actually stores the _plans to a structure in_ the structure itself? Like I said – smart and not very bright, all at the same time." John watched her climb into the tube, tried not to stare at the rather shapely derrière before him, sighed again and told himself it wasn't _entirely_ his fault.

"Well," he told her, following her. "I guess we just haven't known anyone like you down here before." She stopped, and he could feel the smile she sent him then.

"You still haven't," she told him.

John sighed and gave up, decided to worry about it after he managed to avoid getting killed or captured.

_If _he managed, that was.

* * *

><p><strong>WHEN THEY ARRIVED,<strong> they arrived to smoke, bodies and chaos.

The great armored doors had been melted open, and the bodies of guards and technicians along with it.

"Nice," Crichton said as _Lo'Lhaa_ hove over the base. His companions were gaping at the carnage – he was looking at the Marauder parked menacingly at the door. "That's new."

D'Argo brought his ship down silently, left the Deception Shroud activated. Chiana crowded up behind Crichton, looked out the portal.

"That followed us through the wormhole?"

"No, Chi. It beat us here. Must be _really_ new." He wondered if it'd fit in the bay of the _Vengeance._

The Marauder had the basic layout of a regular Marauder, only this one was shiny and curved, where the others were dark and bulky. It reminded him of a sports car, looked like it could haul some serious ass.

"I could take it out," D'Argo told him, reaching for his weapons array.

"No." Crichton told him, his mind already plotting how to steal the thing. Never hurt to have something sporty to impress the ladies. "Drop us in front of it. We'll use _Lo-Lhaa's_ Shroud to cover us as we go in." He backed off from the portal, pulled his pistols, swapped cartridges in one. He tested the other, and Aeryn made a mental note of his technique. He tucked them into his holsters butt-out and she noted that, too. "You and Chi can take off after you've dropped us off."

"We'll help you, John." D'Argo told him. _Lo'Lhaa_ dropped to land in front of the doors. "Of course we will."

Crichton shrugged. "Not your fight, D. Up to you." He turned to Aeryn. "Where would John scamper off to in an emergency? They have a safe room for him?"

Aeryn bit down a retort, and realized he was right. She just nodded, instead.

"The Vault," she told him. "It's several levels down, however."

"A redoubt," D'Argo muttered. "Makes sense."

"The Mountain is supposed to be pretty secure – strong enough to survive a near-hit with a sizable nuke." Crichton adjusted his holsters, checked his Forge, slung it. He tapped his comm three times, then fastened his jacket.

"Peacekeepers don't use nukes," Chiana smirked. "Shall we?"

"That's what I love about you, Chi," Crichton had smirked in return. "You're so frelling _upbeat._" She stuck her tongue out at him, smiled. He pulled his "Girls", sucked in a breath and said; "Let's do it."

* * *

><p><strong>THE BATTLE HAD BEEN ENTIRELY ONE-SIDED.<strong>

The interior of the base was basically wall-to-wall wreckage, as Lamm had kept a few Hammer and Seeker drones in reserve. Aeryn had been anxious, Chiana vaguely horrified at the destruction and dead humans, D'Argo alert. Crichton calmly marched through the chaos like he knew where he was going.

"_Do_ you know where you're going?" Chiana asked him. He nodded.

"This is NORAD. I've got John's memories of being here. Can't trust them entirely, but they should be good for getting us where we need to be. Unless you can find me a working computer."

That was unlikely. The Seeker remotes had fried everything as they went past.

"This is... unnecessary," D'Argo muttered, stepping over a body, his Qualta glinting in flickering light of spot-fires.

"This is nothing compared to what Scorpius could do." Chiana reminded them.

"He's gotta get the chance first," Crichton told her, leading them deeper. "It's not over yet."

As he passed by a smoking corpse, Crichton knew that it hadn't even really started.

* * *

><p><strong>THE VENT THEY WERE IN<strong> exited into a small junction with barely enough room for both to stand. She was far too close and he was far too aware of it.

"This won't do at all," John told her dryly. She just smiled, indicated another small door about a metre up from the floor. John nodded, and followed her in.

Miriya used her Peacekeeper issue "laptop" to tap into the base's security cameras, and watched Lamm's opening assault. She also opened a telemetry display above the video feed, using the computer to plot the movement of Lamm, her team and devices. Behind her John cursed as he watched the base personnel fight and die.

-Such compassion.- Iriya said snidely in her head. -They die for him, and he can only think of his own glory.-

_Dreams are the last thing we let go of, _Miriya told her, frowning at the chaos. _He thinks he sees what he calls the 'big picture'. From what I can gather, this one isn't really a fan of violence._

A fierce scoff.

-He does not see the 'big picture'. Not remotely. Crichton sees it much clearer, and I fail to see why you suddenly prefer this one to the other.-

_'Prefer'? They're the same man – more or less. It's not like they gave us a damn choice with these frelling pheromones!_

-I don't think they are as influential on _us_ as they are on _him_. You _are_ preferring this one. As you said, I live here too.

_Maybe I understand this one better. More in common._

As if it were an afterthought: -They are hardly the same.-

Miriya noted it, but let it go._ It'd just be nice to have some choice once-in-a-while. _

- Be that as it is, I see no reason to remain with this one. We should try and get back to Crichton.-

_Well, it's no surprise which one _you_ prefer. _ Amused. The base's power flickered and she heard John mutter something about the 'impossibility' of that.

Iriya didn't even pretend outrage at the insinuation.

-Why shouldn't I? He has the only viable passage off this planet and back to our own space.-

_Ah. Entirely practical, is it? _Disbelief. There was a pause from Iriya longer than Miriya should have thought it to have been and into which she read much.

-Of course.-

_If you say so. _ Still skeptical. She switched tacks, watched John. _We have to assume they'll find him eventually._

-We must make sure that does not happen – you have the skills – can we make ourselves sensor-blind here?-

Miriya gave the room a quick survey, ignoring a increasingly-distressing John. He began muttering something about "doing something'. This room was mostly full of access to pipes and conduit junctions, power shunts and regulator panels. There was only the one small accessway hatch at the end.

_No, but I might be able to _camouflage_ us in here, with all the power being routed and directed through this space, I can generate a white frequency that will blanket us into the noise this place is no doubt giving off. The energy spillage in here is atrociously wasteful._

-It might be best if it were done quickly. That Seeker is in this sector.-

A quick glance of the telemetry showed it moving steadily in their direction. Miriya doubted it was looking for them specifically, but there was no need to take chances.

"That frelling figures," she muttered out loud, reaching for her computer, began entering data quickly.

"What?" John asked, stunned at the quickness and ferocity of the attack.

"Seeker drone on its way. We don't want it finding us." John opened his mouth, but she hushed him, and they watched the screen anxiously. A few tense moments went by as the drone slowed once it entered their sector, but they were quickly relieved went it took a different route and moved off.

"Nice," John whispered. "Could you jam those damn things somehow? Help those folks up there?"

Miriya shook her red head.

"I'm afraid not. The whole point of this is that they want _you_. I do anything else and they _get _you. I'm afraid everyone else is expendable." She sighed. "They don't want you alive, you know. Just your head."

John shook said head, grimaced.

"What the hell can they get out of my dead brain?"

Miriya smiled a small smile at him.

"Well... it wouldn't _be_ dead." She tapped him on the forehead. "They don't need _you_ in there to mine it for information. Just for it to be alive."

"Goddamn it." John sat down on a coil of wire. "Every corner I go around, it just gets worse. All I wanted to do was come home and help advance my damn species."

Miriya looked at him compassionately. "That's the problem with having god-like powers. Everyone else wants them too."

He shook his head.

"Isn't that why _you're_ here?" He sighed, more a long exhale. "Or, at least, the other one in your head."

Miriya just nodded. Of course he'd figured out by now.

"That's her job."

"And yours?" She shook her head at that.

"No. I'm her cover. Like I told you – I'm a tech through-and-through and a damn good one at that. You saw Crichton's ship. I designed, spec'd and re-built that. Those are _Nebari _cannon on the nose. I made them work. I can take any kind of tech and mesh it with any other." John smiled at her. He wondered whose benefit that declaration was for – it was a sale, but to whom?

"You really can?"

"I figured out _your_ systems pretty frelling quick." She said with no little pride. "Primitive dren, but I still did it." She narrowed her eyes at him. "You're _supposed _to be a famous tech here – how long did it take _you_ to figure out _our_ technology?"

John smiled ruefully. "Okay... nowhere nearly as quickly." Miriya was nodding her head as he spoke.

"...So don't question my motivations." She sniffed with disdain. "I don't give a dren what anyone says. I'm my own person."

"I don't doubt it," John told her sincerely, and he cemented a deal then he hadn't known he'd made. Her smile was suddenly broken by her shout as the Seeker drone exploded violently through a conduit and came directly at them.

* * *

><p><strong>"THAT'S FAR ENOUGH,<strong>" a cold voice informed them, as Crichton and his companions stepped into a large conference room, prepared to attack. "This is _over._"

Nerada Lamm and her team, flanked by a Hunter and Seeker, stood waiting.

"Well..." Crichton heard from his counterpart across the room, kneeling with his hands on his head next to a pissed-off looking Miriya at Lamm's feet. "...crap."

"I take it you're unlikely to deal." Crichton asked Lamm, pistols loose at his side. Lamm sent him a look of disdain. Beside him, Aeryn cursed softly. Neither D'Argo or Chiana lowered their weapons.

"You have nothing I want."

"Don't be so sure." Crichton told her, affecting a casual air. "It's early, yet."

"No, Crichton," She told him, a cold smile on her face. "It is very late. You have nothing left to play. I have the Crichton I require, I have the superior ship, I have the upper hand. My assassination expert is dealing with your Thantados pet even as we speak. You have lost. This is not some idiotic vid where I listen to you talk so you may 'foil' me. " She ordered the Hunter up. It hummed to a position beside her.

"Kill them." she ordered it.

The Hammer moved forward, deployed a lancer-cannon, then stopped, and _then turned back to Lamm_.

"What are you doing?" she demanded. "I said to _kill them_!" she thrust a finger at Crichton and Aeryn. The Hammer's lancer powered up, hummed ominously, still pointed directly at the Peacekeeper.

At his side, Aeryn felt her surprise ramp up as Crichton began laughing softly. Chiana started laughing out loud. D'Argo smiled, but his guard never wavered.

"Remember 'Sawer'?" He asked Lamm, to her face darkening with fury, "The _one_ thing he's best at – _because it sure as frell isn't undercover work_ – is making computers his willing accomplices. I'm afraid neither your Hammer nor your Seeker will kill me – or anyone with me."

"But...", Aeryn said to him, her incredulity rising with her surprise. "It was trying pretty frelling hard all day."

"Gotta keep up appearances. Also a calculated risk. I didn't say it wouldn't _shoot _at me, it just won't _kill _me outright." Crichton told her with small smile. "Or you, or anyone Hax programmed it with..."

As if to punctuate his statement, one of Lamm's team suddenly shouted, aimed their gun. The Hammer's lancer cut the stocky woman in two and vapourized the remains. The Seeker had whirled on the rest, its weapons pointing squarely at Lamm and her team. "But it _will_ kill them."

"I still have Crichton and the Subvertor." Lamm told him, to his shrug.

"Kill him," Crichton told her, to the glares of a few in the room. "Solves about thirty of my problems right there."

Lamm hesitated, and he could see her thinking furiously. After a moment, she lowered her gun with a small salute.

"So you _do_ appear to have the upper hand after all."

"So it would appear." He replied, pistols still in hand. "Y'all can drop your guns and kick them my way."

"Should we warn your assassin?" Aeryn asked him, helping Chiana collect the guns as they slid across the floor at them. John and Miriya moved away from Lamm, skirting the drones. Crichton shook his head.

"Why? He opens that door and he'll be dead before it finishes opening."

* * *

><p><strong>SPECIAL SERVICES OFFICER DAWG'L MENSHAF<strong> made his way cautiously down darkened corridors, past blasted-open heavy doors, the hunter drone's auxiliary attack remotes doing their job with a grim efficiency. He knew where he was going – their scans had been thorough and deep. His prey was currently sitting quite calmly across from the three troopers that had been captured earlier by the humans. As he turned the corner into the room the Humans called the "Tank" and she saw him – for of course she heard him coming – he smiled to himself. The troopers called to him as he entered the light unmolested, the humans here dead or fled, but he ignored them.

In her cell, Shivi'na turned her fire eyes on him calmly.

_What fool, _he wondered, seeing that she yet had her blades about her, _would leave her weapons? _It made his mission tricky, but not impossible.

"Hey!" he heard the highest ranking trooper call again, louder. "Officer Menshaf! Let us out!"

Menshaf turned, smiled at them, as he hit the control that opened the door to Shiv's cell.

"I think not."

...out of the corner of his eye, he just caught the glint of her moving figure and her flashing blades...

* * *

><p><strong>JOHN HAD JUST STARTED TO COMPLAIN<strong> when something rather odd and entirely unexpected happened.

There was a sickening feeling for everyone present of something grabbing them all-around, as if an invisible heavy foam had abruptly filled the room and cut off their light and air. It felt as if the foam – with everyone trapped within - was moving, a sense of motion of being on the sea, floating, then accelerating, slowing, accelerating. Anyone prone to motion sickness would not have appreciated the feeling.

It also happened everywhere at once. The room with Crichton, Aeryn, the Moyans and Lamm's team, John and Miriya.

The Tank, with Shiv, Menshaf, Stark and the Peacekeepers.

To Jocasta Akanke in the middle of personally reading the riot act to Williams, and Williams too.

It happened to Haxer and Chak'sa, although she was unconscious for it.

In two mid-sized towns in the US Midwest, the fifty-seven thousand three hundred and twenty six victims (_including the nine thousand dogs and thirteen thousand cats, along with a large number of birds, mice, rats, squirrels and five million of thirty-five different species of insects)_ of two Stompers woke up as usual, and wondered what all the fuss was about.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: The rest is coming - honest!<em>


	5. End

**Author's note:**_ I know what you're thinking: "WTF - I waited this long for this short bit?" Holidays. They tend to get in the way of pretty much everything. ;-) There was also a bit of rethinking of a good chunk of where this was going, and various plot points that had to be rather ruthlessly judged and altered/excised. This chapter _would_ have been longer without the culls - and full of the unnecessary. I was juggling too many things I thought it needed - and it simply _didn't_ need those things. So - here's the end result. Short, yes, but it'll get better. :-) Stick around, thanks for reading and feel free to review, good or bad. I have the next story in this series re- plotted and it should proceed without too much trouble. Oh - and Happy Last Year of Earth. ;-)_

* * *

><p><strong>THE LACK OF COLOUR<strong> was the first thing that struck him as odd.

Hues and shades started to spill in after a few moments, as his head cleared, slowly slide over objects and wash across him. His head throbbed behind his ear, and he could feel his neural inhibitor working overtime. Someone – or something – was trying to probe his mind. It must have given up, because after a few moments, the inhibitor calmed down, and a figure seemed to coalesce from the melting colours before him. The colours firmed, slid around each other to solidify into a slim female form, almost mannequin-like, as if the fashioner knew the form but not the substance.

_Now we meet the instigator,_ Harvey told him. _Perhaps the very shaper of the last few days?_

Maybe longer, Crichton told him. Can't trust anything. Be wary.

_That is a simple habit on my part._

As it seemed to be taking some time for the figure to coalesce completely, Crichton used the time to look around. He spied the rest, all frozen in the midst of their actions: Shiv poised to kill a Peacekeeper, three Peacekeepers looking surprised; Miriya curious and cross at the same time, in that way only she knew how to pull off, that woman Akanke with a finger in the face of that idiot General. He saw Chak'sa seemingly asleep, laying comfortably half-a-metre off the 'ground'. Chi and D were frozen in surprise as well, D'Argo's Qualta pointed at the sky. Lamm, Crichton noted, had gone for her gun, and he admired her presence of mind. Aeryn, apparently still in fine form, had noticed and gone for hers. She was glaring at Lamm. He almost smiled at that. _No rust on that woman._

Of all present, only himself, Haxer, John and Stark seemed to be able to move.

Stark was looking up, and Crichton had already noted it. For once, John seemed to be thinking rather than just running in circles and complaining. Haxer went to straight to Chak'sa, checked on her, then started poking and nudging the others.

"Well," John told his pirate counterpart. "This is new."

"I can't feel anything," Stark told them from a few meters away. "No life, no intelligence." Stark decide to join them, skirting the still-forming ...whatever it was. "Although that may change."

"You're sounding rather lucid, Stark." John pointed out, to which the Stykera noted and patted his own head.

"Quiet here, very quiet." Haxer joined them. He pointed at the figure behind them.

"Synth?" He looked up. "Hear that?" There was, after a brief listen, a low murmur to be heard. It sounded as if someone were speaking loudly, but in a far-off room.

"Sounds like someone talking," John shrugged.

"They are," Hax told his Captain. "I can hear about thirty distinct languages so far. There are a _lot_ more there, but they're all perfectly sync'd."

"Trying to pick one to talk to us in?" John asked, to Hax's nod.

"Very likely." A pause. "So - you _do_ think instead of complain."

Crichton snorted, and John ignored it.

"It's been a trying week," he said dryly. "I'm usually the one in charge." He looked at Crichton, seemed annoyed at having to ask. "So... how much trouble do you think we're in?"

Crichton was still looking up, scratched his chin. As he spoke, John decided to see why.

"Well," Crichton began, "either we're here all-in-our-heads, which bespeaks some serious mind-frell capabilities, which is bad enough; or we're here _physically,_ which is moving into 'god-like alien powers' territory, which is worse." John sighed, watching what appeared to be a colossal curved screen above their heads. On it appeared what looked to be every video feed from Earth, hundreds and hundreds of tiny screens flickering. There were some with waves flowing over them, or that TV white noise, but John knew those were just likely radio frequencies. They were standing in a media hub the likes of which had never been seen before.

"Total information immersion. No organic can assimilate this much information at this volume." Hax quirked a smile. "Well, no non-legendary ones."

"Machine intelligence." Crichton nodded, turned his attention back down to eye-level. "Hax? How's the rest of us?"

"The way they appear." He shrugged. "Warm, alive, but in some kind of stasis. They're movable. We could always pose them in embarrassing positions for a snort."

"Just let me get a rain slicker for when Shiv snaps out of it and starts spraying you everywhere." Crichton chuckled. He pointed at the what appeared to be near-finished figure. "What do you think – interface?"

Haxer nodded.

"Doubtless. You'd think with this kinda tech, though, it'd be quicker."

"If this is what I think it might be, it's been here for a _very_ long time." From above them, a metal needle descended, and a ball of blue-white light formed on its tip, dropped from it like a water drop, floated slowly to the construct that had at last finished itself into a definite female shape, nude, but without details – just the shape. The face, however, appeared to be a computer's idea of a perfectly-symmetrical female face, attractive, but surprisingly bland. The drop of light settled on the head, was slowly absorbed.

After another long moment, the eyes suddenly snapped open, glowing with that same light.

"Our host," John said, trepidation in his voice. For once, Stark seemed more curious than anxious.

"_Exxxxxxxxxxxpa..._" it said, with a burring stutter, voice also female, but flat, grindy, as if unused for a time. Then it spoke far too fast to be comprehended, then too slow, reversed its word order, spoke several languages at once, let loose a burst of machine code, then went silent. It blinked, worked its jaw for a silent moment, then looked up and said in a perfectly-intelligible, clear and richly feminine voice:

"Explain your presence here."

"You brought us." Haxer told it. "One way or another." It looked at him, then down at itself, looked back. When it did, it was wearing dark clothes, and had short blond hair, eyebrows and lashes, brown intelligent eyes, and colour to its skin. "She" looked, John thought, a bit like a tanned Scarlett Johanson.

"No," it corrected him. "This one is the Interface to The Monitor." It looked at Stark for a long moment, then seemed to dismiss him. "Your Interface?"

Crichton waved Haxer at it.

"You're up, Hax."

"Yeah, thanks. If I get us killed, it's your fault, Boss."

"Isn't it always?" Hax just shook his head, stepped up.

"Greetings," Hax began. "I'm going to dispense with the obvious and obligatory and just make the fairly-safe assumption that you already know just what and whom we are, so logically it only remains that you should identify yourself in terms we can understand coherently, the better to begin a dialogue."

"Nice opening," John muttered, "just piss it off."

"This is the most appropriate Interface deduced for bioforms of your morphology. I am a construct of the - " the word used was apparently so incomprehensible that neither Crichtons nor Stark registered it – Haxer, however, grimaced in pain. " - installed 7.88923149 × 10 to the16th seconds ago within your natural satellite." It paused, then continued when Haxer nodded. "This Monitor has been active for only five instances of 4.82119702 × 10 to the10th hours per instance. This Monitor has currently been active for its sixth term for 30 680.3447 hours and counting."

"Only five instances?" John asked. "Which five?" The Interface looked at him.

"Each instance marked the terminal reduction of the majority of lifeforms on the planet below." John shook his head.

"The 'Big Five" extinction events over the last billion years. It operated for..." he did the math, "Five and a half million years each time." He sucked in a breath. "Holy _shit_."

"It's at least a billion years older than that." Crichton corrected him. "Give or take five hundred million years or so."

John just shook his head. The engineering to do this... "Who the hell builds machines _this_ durable?"

"Interface - " Haxer asked it. "Your creators – is there a present era analogue for them we would understand?"

"Reference found, closest match, colloquial terminology: 'Ancients'."

"Figures," Crichton muttered. "Who else? Because of the wormhole."

The Interface turned "her" head to him.

"Correct. The Profundity's proximity to this planet necessitated long-term observation."

Haxer shook his head, chuckled softly, but John just look confused. Crichton said what Haxer had been thinking.

"So you basically spent _2-and-half billion years_ watching – for _6 million years_ at a time, usually around large-scale extinction events – the only life-bearing planet in this system on the _off-chance_ that a lifeform _might _evolve the potential technology to some day exploit this... Profundity?"

The Interface blinked, and its tone was almost one that sounded as if that should have been completely obvious.

"Correct."

"..And it, if I'm not mistaken, only reactivated itself when you - " Haxer pointed at John - "returned to Earth."

"Correct. This one - " 'she' also pointed at John, perhaps imitating Hax, "represents a significant threat to both the planet below and the Profundity's continued existence."

"Finally someone gets it." Crichton shook his head at John.

"I am not a threat." John insisted.

"The Ancients and pretty much everyone around you begs to frelling differ," Crichton muttered. "What do you need, John? The damn thing falling on your head?"

"I've already told you what it would take for me to..." Crichton jabbed a gloved finger into his face.

"I'm done helping you." Crichton turned back to the Interface. "What is it gonna take to get this nonsense over with, Monitor?"

"The dissolution of the Knowledge of The Profundity and All threat access to it in perpetuity." One could almost hear the capital letters.

"That's best case scenario. What is minimum acceptable given the current state of affairs?" Hax rolled his eyes at that.

The Interface seemed to consider.

"Destruction of all extant Profundity transcription. Isolation or destruction of remaining receptacles."

"That's you, Hero." Crichton paced a few steps away, up to Aeryn, pulled her armed hand up to point her pulse pistol directly at Lamm. He didn't linger, and John wondered at the casualness of it. "Monitor, it sounds to me like you want whatever this transcription is eliminated and Earth isolated again. Correct me if I'm wrong here."

"Acceptable."

"So..." Crichton said, looking at John from the corner of his eye. "...closing the wormhole would neatly do that, would you agree?"

"Agreed." John opened his mouth, closed it. "You, however, do not have that ability." This directed at Crichton himself.

"I'm aware. Do you have an alternative?"

"Yes." The Interface told him. "The Monitor can facilitate closure by - "

Crichton heard the shot, spun about to see Aeryn blow a neat hole in the wall where Lamm had once stood. She, her team, killer droids were gone. There was no smoke, and personnel of Cheyenne Mountain gaped at them from the hallway.

"The _frell_...?" Aeryn muttered, sending him a confused look. They were the only two in the room.

"Hell and damnation, " Crichton muttered, glancing at the ceiling a moment before alarms started shrieking. " Mostly in our heads. I hope I'm wrong." He didn't wait, took off at a good pace. Aeryn took a single deep breath and followed him up the corridor past running technicians and soldiers. They skidded into the 'war room' a few moments later to feverish activity, and an anxious Akanke and sweating Williams.

"God. _Dammit_." Crichton swore.

* * *

><p><strong>IT HAD BEEN GOING ACCORDING TO PLAN.<strong>

It _had_ been. Of course, plans are only as good as the variables in play.

_Never lose sight of the primary goal_, Crichton had been coached by his inner Scorpius:

"_We cannot predict all outcomes, but we _can_ predict our own responses to those outcomes. We can predict others, if we are careful in our study. For the most part, people are utterly predictable; they will, given a specific circumstance, act appropriately to that circumstance given past actions and their innate personalities. _

_Their own admissions are false. _

_We must never believe completely anything anyone says, ever. _

_We must also account for instinctual and emotional reaction, for these are always true. Knowing our responses, knowing their likely reactions, we can manipulate our situation and their personal narratives and shape them into paths we desire. _

_Misdirection is as important as direction, deception and an appreciation of folly must be touchstones. Not only must we appeal to noble ends, but to base desires. We must be willing to inflict pain, to inflict pleasure, to condemn even those we care about to perdition should it be necessary. Sacrifice must become a byword for success._

_We know our desired end, and we must keep account at all times our course of action. If our goal be not all-important, why then do we bother? _

_Think, if you will for a moment, what Scorpius has given up, John. _Everything_. The chance for anything you might consider "normal". He is become a monster – the price he _must _pay - to achieve his end – and it is _not_ revenge. Revenge is merely his fuel._

_It is not even the security of the Sebacean people, though that is an important part of it – it is simply that the _Scarrans do not prevail. _Nothing more, nothing less. If he secures the future of the __Sebaceans, so much the better, but it will be a side-benefit, not the be-all and end-all."_

Crichton had chuckled at that. He had no future. He had no plans, save staying alive long enough to see that _Scorpius_ did not prevail. The half-breed bastard would have to find another way to frustrate the Scarran plan of universal domination. The day he stood over Scorpius' smoking corpse was as far ahead as he'd ever thought.

As far as 'John Crichton' – Pirate – was concerned, he had nothing past that to look forward to, and didn't care that he didn't.

Still and all, he'd listened to Harve when it came to formulating plans. If anyone knew how to plan ahead, it was Scorpius, like the idea or not. That sumbitch knew how to hedge his bets.

Of course, there _were_ those things you simply couldn't foresee.

The end of the world for one.

* * *

><p><strong>"OFFICER SUN!"<strong> Akanke shouted over the tumult of the War Room. "Is this something you recognize?" She thrust her hand at the largest screen in the room. On it was a steady but blurry image, obviously at highest resolution, of a large dark shape appearing to fire on another large dark shape.

A tech shouted that he 'had it' and the image cleared.

Aeryn gaped, turned concerned eyes to Crichton.

"Is that...?"

Crichton blew out a sigh, shook his head.

"John has officially run out of time."

Firing steadily on the dark sphere that held the Monitor, ringed with a blue Moebius-ribbon of light that hurt the eyes, was a Peacekeeper Carrier, the wormhole closing neatly behind it.

Scorpius had at last arrived.

* * *

><p><strong>NEXT TIME ON<strong>

**FARSCAPE - THE FREEBOOTER ERA:**

**SLEDGEHAMMER:**

**Rock The Casbah**


End file.
